During his more than three decades in the military, Ray Boland served a tour in Germany during the Berlin Crisis and two combat tours in Vietnam before ending his career as commanding officer at Fort McCoy.
He also upstaged Bob Hope.
Boland’s military career, from the battlefield to the lighthearted, is chronicled in “When the Bugle Calls: A Soldier’s Memoir.” The memoir traces his 1954 enlistment in the National Guard, when he left his childhood Chicago home to train at then-Camp McCoy, to his retirement as an Army colonel in 1991.
“I could have never dreamed that 37 years later I would be back at Fort McCoy as a regular Army full colonel base commander getting ready to retire,” Boland said.
Nor could he have imagined sharing the stage with a movie and television legend. Fort McCoy was busy training thousands of personnel for Operation Desert Shield when Hope was scheduled for an Oct. 19, 1990, appearance at the La Crosse Center. Hope traveled to La Crosse when the venue opened in 1980 and was booked in advance to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
Hope, who had a long history of entertaining military personnel, couldn’t accommodate a second show at Fort McCoy, but Boland said Hope offered to pay for the soldiers to see the show in La Crosse. Forty school buses transported 2,000 soldiers from Fort McCoy.
Boland said the audience was deeply moved by the soldiers, who marched in formation into the La Crosse Center.
“It was awesome,” Boland said. “People who were there really came apart seeing these soldiers who were getting ready to go to war.”
The show was scheduled to end with Boland presenting Hope a camouflage jacket and cap with Hope’s name and the Fort McCoy logo. He knew Hope was planning a trip to entertain the troops in Saudi Arabia and decided to offer some advice.
“My enthusiasm got the best of me… I decided to crack a joke,” Boland said. He advised Hope to wear the military clothing so that he wouldn’t “get caught between Iraq and a hard place.”
Boland said the audience liked the quip, “but Bob is kind of gritting his teeth like, ‘You son of a gun, you cracked a joke on me.'” He said Hope’s staffers then approached him and said, “Colonel, what is the matter with you? …Nobody cracks a joke on Bob Hope. Bob tells the jokes, man. You don’t do that.”
As it turned out, everything was fine between Boland and the comedian. Two weeks later, Boland received a call from Hope, who asked Boland to repeat the joke so that he could use it for his upcoming show.
The book also recounts the more serious stories of Boland’s service, including separate chapters of his 1966 and 1970 Vietnam tours and his tours in Europe during the Cold War.
He said one of the book’s objectives is to share a typical soldier’s view of military service.
“Most veterans tell me they’re very proud of serving their country, and if they could do it over again, they would,” Boland said.
Boland later served 12 years as Wisconsin secretary of Veterans Affairs, was appointed to a federal advisory committee on homeless veterans and made an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2012. None of that, however, is chronicled in the book.
“This story ends July 1, 1991, the day I retired from the Army,” said Boland, who makes his home in Sparta.
The book, available on Amazon, is the first written by Boland. “It seems to be a little odd to be first-time author at 86,” he said.
There may be a second volume. Boland said he’s considering writing another book about his service in civilian life, especially his tenure as state veterans secretary.
“I want to tell about what happens to veterans when they come home,” he said. “There are some myths that need to be displaced; there are stereotypes that need to be displaced. …I wanted to share with everyone what our men and women go through serving our country.”
___
(c) 2024 Winona Daily News
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
