Entertainer Chris Noel
earned the right to
call herself a Vietnam veteran

By Chuck Howard

On Christmas Day 1965, a green-eyed blonde named Chris Noel and other Hollywood celebrities visited Letterman and Balboa hospitals with California Governor Jerry Brown. "My roommate Eileen O'Neill and I thought we had been invited because we were pretty and because we could entertain," Noel later recalled.

"We worked a routine from Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend. I was Marilyn Monroe, and Eileen was Jane Russell. "We were taken to the gangrene ward, where we were given masks and gowns. Every case was a double or triple amputee. We were told the procedure of scrubbing their open wounds caused excruciating pain. I would see these scenes repeated many times. As much as they upset me, I held back the tears and smiled. Once I saw the power of a smile ... I knew what I wanted most."

Thanks to the USO (United Service Organizations), the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, and Special Services, many servicemen and women enjoyed a brief respite from war on at least one occasion during their tours in Vietnam.

The entertainers and musicians who performed in-country offered a standard list of reasons for packing up and heading to the wa r: love of country, money, excitement, career advancement, and a desire to do something for the soldiers. Chris "Miss Christmas" Noel is one of those who "did it for the guys." She has earned the right to call herself a "veteran."

On her way to Hollywood stardom, she would become one of the first (and last) cheerleaders for the New York Giants, a model and a cover girl. With her girl-next-door good looks, Noel seemed literally made for Hollywood. She starred with, dated or befriended such Vietnam-era entertainment favorites as Elvis Presley, Hugh O'Brian, Shelley Fabares, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Rydell, Burt Reynolds, Bruce Springsteen, Don Johnson and Bob Hope. Her film credits include "Soldier in the Rain" with Steve McQueen, "Honeymoon Hotel" with Robert Goulet, and "Girl Happy" with Elvis Presley.

A Date With Chris

Noel, however, discovered her true calling soon after she was offered her own radio show with Armed Forces Radio. "A Date With Chris" was broadcast to GIs throughout the world. It was an immediate hit. The show came about when she was dating singer Jack Jones, who was putting in Reserve time at Armed Forces Radio in Hollywood.

"They were interviewing girls for the purpose of putting one on the air," recalled Noel. "So I made an appointment for an interview, answered their questions and did a kind of mock radio show and...a few weeks later I was on the air."

First, she co-hosted a show called Small World. "Once the show hit Vietnam," Noel said, "it became so popular they decided they wanted me to have my own show."

Noel's boyfriend was touring Vietnam with Bob Hope. "I talked to him when he was in Vietnam," she recalled. "I wanted to go. Desperately, I wanted to go with Bob Hope. The minute I got this radio show, I volunteered to go, and I was told I couldn't. I was turned down. I just wasn't a big enough star. But then, weeks later, I received a telegram from Washington. It said, 'Chris Noel, we would like you to go to Vietnam to help build up the morale of the troops.'"

Noel is sometimes credited with introducing the then-fashionable miniskirt to the Far East. "The reason I took miniskirts to Vietnam was because I was only allowed to take one bag, and I wanted to have some nice clothes and miniskirts didn't take up much room," she said. "I had no idea what to take. I didn't know that I was going to be jumping on helicopters. I had never been in a helicopter. I soon found out that I was going to go virtually everywhere by helicopter. There was this one small problem, though--I have this incredible fear of heights. But when I was in the helicopters, I never had this fear. I loved it. And they always flew with the doors open everywhere I went. I loved sitting by the edge, by the door gunner, looking straight down. It may sound strange, but the wind and noise level became serenity to me."

Unlike most of her contemporaries, who were restricted to the main bases, Noel spread her unique brand of bubbly cheer from sprawling base camps to small, pinnacled firebases to remote outposts manned by as few as two GIs. She sang, danced, read poetry, consoled, kissed and hugged her way into the hearts of tens of thousands of servicemen from 1966 to 1970. "I don't think many women traveled throughout Vietnam the way I did or as often," Noel said. "It was purely ad lib in and out of landing zones, hospitals and bases."

Sister, Mother, and Girlfriend

Having no political leanings, Noel fulfilled the role of sister, mother and girlfriend for American servicemen, often at the risk of her own life. "I remember one time when we were on top of a mountain and there was incoming and I was flat up against the bunker as they brought in a helicopter to get me out," she said. "I was really scared. As it landed, I didn't get in that helicopter, I was literally thrown into it, and I heard the bullets hitting it as we took off."

Noel broadcast a radio show from Saigon, countering the voice of Hanoi Hannah. "Of course, I also knew about Saigon Sally, the Vietnamese woman who traveled around the Saigon area broadcasting on portable transmitters," said Noel. "Her morale-deflating show [which supported the North] ended while she was on the air. The last sounds were a crash, gunfire, and a man's voice, 'You have just heard the concluding saga of Saigon Sally.' I knew this could also happen to me." (During the Tet offensive, a bullet entered the American Forces Vietnam Network studio in Vietnam, piercing the ceiling and two pages of news copy and embedding itself in the newsman's typewriter.)

Noel's fear of death was compounded by the fact that the Viet Cong (VC) had put a price on her head. "General Westmoreland and Bob Hope had a price on their heads of $25,000," said Noel. "My head was only worth $10,000." The VC were quite energetic, however, in their pursuit of this bounty. "I was riding in an open jeep in a caravan on Highway 19, which connects Qui Nhon with Pleiku," recalled Noel. "Suddenly, snipers started shooting at us. It sounded like the cracking of whips. One of the fellows dragged me out of the jeep, threw me in a ditch, and jumped on top of me."

By early spring 1968, Noel was well entrenched in the war, spending little time in Saigon and most of her time in the field: the Delta, Nha Trang, Long Binh, Bien Hoa, Thuy Hoa, Quang Tri, Hue, Phnom Penh, Phu Loc, Phu Bai, Dong Ha, Kontum, An Khe, An Hoa, An Loc, Tay Ninh and Khe Sanh--just a few "klicks" from the Demilitarized Zone to as far south as you can go.

Noel trooped out to rifle companies, where she chatted with the boys in bunkers, danced on mess hall tables and played rock 'n' roll on her portable phonograph. She even visited motor pools, maintenance shops, graves registration and the morgue.

In Da Nang, Noel shared a room with Martha "Colonel Maggie" Ray. "That night she didn't sleep in her bed," Noel racalled, "because of my continuous coughing and hacking--I had a bad sinus infection. At 11 p.m., she was found in a ratty bathrobe eating cold C rations, lima beans and ham.

"Fashion really isn't important in a war zone."

In the field, Noel was asked to sign a shell, "To Charlie, lots of luck." She was then asked to pull the lanyard of the 105mm howitzer that had swallowed up the round. "He [the artillerist] told me it was aimed into an abandoned rubber plantation five miles away. Another told me it was aimed at a suspected VC village. I preferred to believe the former."

Bob Hope celebrated his 25th year of entertaining the troops overseas, marking the occasion with the U.S. 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi December 25. "I still remember his introduction," Noel said. "'North Vietnam has Hanoi Hannah, and our government decided to do something about it. So they have a gal who's sort of gonna be a counterpart of that, and I'm sure she'll top Hanoi Hannah by a long shot, because she's one of our most beautiful gals. She's from Hollywood and I know she's doing a great job, and I want you to meet her this afternoon...CHRIS NOEL...Miss Christmas, right here!'"

December 25 was always Noel's busiest day. Dressed in her minidress Santa outfit, she landed in as many firebases and landing zones as she could. "I realized that, even if for only a few moments, I was their sister, their girlfriend, or their sexual fantasy." In giving so much of herself for so long, Noel believes she came away from the war with far more than she gave. It did not come, however, without a price.

After her tours in Vietnam, Noel sometimes found it tough getting work in films. "I did one in 1968 and one in 1969, but after that I didn't get any work for a long time. Hollywood was so hostile. People like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart (both of whom toured Vietnam) held their own, of course, because they were established superstars. If you were struggling, like I was, it was the kiss of death [to have served in Vietnam].

"Not too many years ago, Jay Bernstein, who was Farrah Fawcett's manager, saw me in Hollywood and said: 'Whatever happened to you? You were the original Farrah Fawcett; everyone had bets on you being one of the next major stars.' I said, 'I went to Vietnam.' But you see, in my heart, that's what I felt I had to do. That's probably why I'm so driven in my work today with veterans--because of the fact that I was there, and I saw what happened."


Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

For more than 10 years after her last trip to Vietnam, Noel suffered migraines, nightmares and numbness in her arms and legs. While being treated for what doctors diagnosed as "allergies" and "anxiety," she became a Valium addict and began smoking marijuana. Depression brought her to consider suicide.

During her three months in a psychiatric hospital, her doctors never delved into her background or asked her about her trips to Vietnam, the psychologically defeated GIs she comforted, nor about the dismembered bodies she had seen. No one associated her symptoms with her wartime experiences or the suicide of her Green Beret husband shortly after his return from Vietnam.

In thumbing through Ms. magazine, Noel came across an article about an outreach program that helped returning vets readjust. Having been married to a vet, she was eligible.

For the first time she came to find that she was not alone in her feelings of depression, anger and anxiety, nor in her sleep disturbances and survivor guilt. Noel was yet another postwar victim of Vietnam--a sufferer of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Noel's autobiography, "A Matter of Survival," recounts her dedication to the GIs and her struggle to recover from PTSD. Today, she relies on her ability to develop the same high energy she needed for her shows.

In February 1993, she founded Vetsville Cease Fire House Inc., in Palm Beach, Fla., to help homeless veterans. Her organization provides food, clothing, shelter, transportation, counseling and employment opportunities.

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This article was written by Chuck Howard and originally published in Vietnam Magazine December 1996.