Bobbie, The Weather Girl

Vietnam

OUR TWO MOST popular shows on Armed Forces Radio and Television Network (AFRTN) in Vietnam were Vic Morrow's Combat and Bobby, the Weather Girl. I suppose that my friends and I liked Combat because it portrayed a better war. Bobby, the Weather Girl, was the funniest show on the air.

Bobbie getting soaked as she predicts rain

I was happily surprised to find that Bobby has been memorialized on the World Wide Web. You can find more than a half million links on Google. There are even YouTube video clips.

Interestingly, the weather girl that you'll see in the clips is not the same one I watched in 1967. It's the same person, but not the same performer. The girl I watched looked like a deer in the headlights whenever the camera first turned on. She glanced frequently off-camera where, we supposed, her handlers were attempting to distract her; to help her relax. They dressed her in tight sweaters, and when she attempted to point to the DMZ, we were riveted somewhere further south.

I had guessed that she was a Red Cross employee, inasmuch as there was scant reason for young women to be in Saigon at the time. I was glad to learn that she wasn't. (Few who have served in combat theaters remember the “doughnut dollies” with any great affection – but that's the subject for another posting). Bobbie was a Red Cross volunteer, which set her apart from the “paid” girls.

I hope that you'll click on the links that I've provided and learn that Bobbie was an exceptional individual as well as a brave young woman. Stumbling on her story has been one of the greater rewards of building this memoir.