# Martha Raye



## Ken N Tx (Dec 13, 2014)

*Hand Salute! A great lady..​ I did not know this about Martha Ray....​ thought you might like to read it.​I was unaware of her credentials or where she is buried.*

*Somehow  I just can't see Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, or Jessica Simpson  doing what this woman (and the other USO women, including Ann Margaret  & Joey Heatherton) did for our troops in past wars.*


*Most of the old time entertainers were made of a lot sterner stuff than today's crop of activists bland whiners.*

*The following is from an Army Aviator who takes a trip down memory lane:*

*"It was just before Thanksgiving '67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west* *of Pleiku. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back.*

*All of a sudden, we heard a 'take-charge' woman's voice in the rear.*

*There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces)*

*beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into*

*the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard.*

*'Maggie' had been visiting her SF 'heroes' out 'west'.*

*We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku.*

*As we all started unloading* *our sad pax's, a 'Smart Mouth' USAF Captain said*

*to Martha.... "Ms Ray, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would*

*not be time for your show!"*

*To all of our surprise, she pulled on her right collar and said ......"Captain,*

*see this eagle? I am a full 'Bird' in the US Army Reserve, and on this is a 'Caduceus'*

*which means I am a Nurse, with a surgical specialty....now, take me to your wounded!"*

*He said, "Yes ma'am..... follow me."*

*Several times at the Army Field Hospital in Pleiku, she would 'cover' a surgical shift, giving* *a nurse a well-deserved break.*

*Martha is the only woman buried in the SF **(Special Forces) cemetery at Ft Bragg.

*


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