United Service Organizations
Arlington, Virginia, U.S. | |
Area served | 200+ centers worldwide |
---|---|
Key people | J. D. Crouch II President and CEO |
Revenue | Donations (a 501(c)(3) non-profit) |
Volunteers | 30,000+ |
Website | www.uso.org |
The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed Forces and their families. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of War, and later with the Department of Defense (DoD), relying heavily on private contributions and on funds, goods, and services from various corporate and individual donors. Although it is congressionally chartered, it is not a government agency.
Founded during
The organization became particularly known for its live performances, called camp shows, through which the entertainment industry helps boost the morale of servicemen and women. In the early days, Hollywood was eager to show its patriotism, and many celebrities joined the ranks of USO entertainers. They went as volunteers to entertain, and celebrities continue to provide volunteer entertainment in military bases in the U.S. and overseas, sometimes placing their own lives in danger by traveling or performing under hazardous conditions. In 2011, the USO was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
The USO has over 200 locations around the world in 14 countries (including the U.S.) and 27 states. During a gala marking the USO's 75th anniversary in 2016, retired Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the chairman of the USO Board of Governors, estimated that the USO has served more than 35 million Americans over its history.[2][3]
History
Mission and goals
The USO was founded on February 4, 1941 by
The first national campaign chairman was
The USO also brought
USO promotional literature stated its goals:
The story of USO camp shows belongs to the American people, for it was their contribution that made it possible. It is an important part in the life of your sons, your brothers, your husbands, and your sweethearts.[9]
In 2011, the USO was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama "for contributions to lifting the spirits of America's troops and their families through the arts".[10]
World War II
After being formed in 1941, in response to World War II, "centers were established quickly ... in churches, barns, railroad cars, museums, castles, beach clubs, and log cabins."[11] Most centers offered recreational activities, such as holding dances and showing movies. And there were the well-known free coffee and doughnuts. Some USO centers provided a haven for spending a quiet moment alone or writing a letter home, while others offered spiritual guidance and made childcare available for military wives.
But the organization became mostly known for its live performances called Camp Shows, through which the entertainment industry helped boost the morale of its servicemen and women. USO Camp Shows, Inc. began in October 1941,[12] and by that fall and winter 186 military theaters existed in the United States. Overseas shows began in November 1941 with a tour of the Caribbean.
From Laurel and Hardy Central:
The Flying Showboat, was the first revue. The troupe of show business professionals toured U.S. military bases in the Caribbean. It included comedians Chico Marx, Laurel and Hardy, singer Jane Pickens, dancer Ray Bolger, and actor John Garfield, who acted as master of ceremonies. These stars performed under some extremely trying conditions, as the weather was brutally hot and many of the camps were not equipped to host theatrical performances. Chico, whose "shoot the keys" piano solos were the heart of his act, often had to do without a piano at all. Thankfully, Laurel and Hardy's Driver's License sketch needed only a few simple props. In any event, even the most ramshackle shows brought loud cheers from the troops, overjoyed that anybody had come to perform for them, let alone some of the finest talents Hollywood had to offer.
Within five months 36 overseas units had been sent within the Americas, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and during 1942 1,000 performed as part of 70 units. Average performers were paid $100 a week; top stars were paid $10 a day because their wealth let them contribute more of their talents.[13]
These overseas shows were produced by the American Theatre Wing, which also provided food and entertainment for the armed services in their Stage Door Canteens. Funds from the sale of film rights for a story about the New York Canteen went toward providing USO tours of shows for overseas troops.[14]
Following the
Until fall 1944 overseas units contained five performers or fewer;
Fundraising was also aided by non-USO entertainment groups. Soldier Shows, which troops – often experienced actors and musicians – organized and held their own performances, were common. The army formed a
War correspondent
According to historian Paul Holsinger, between 1941 and 1945, the USO did 293,738 performances in 208,178 separate visits. Estimates were that more than 161 million servicemen and women, in the U.S. and abroad, were entertained. The USO also did shows in military hospitals, eventually entertaining more than 3 million wounded soldiers and sailors in 192 different hospitals. There were 702 different USO troupes that toured the world, some spending up to six months per tour.[22] In 1943, a United States Liberty ship named the SS U.S.O. was launched. She was scrapped in 1967.[23]
Twenty-eight performers died in the course of their tours, from plane crashes, illness, or diseases contracted while on tour.[13] In one such instance in 1943, a plane carrying a USO troupe crashed outside Lisbon, killing singer and actress Tamara Drasin, and severely injuring Broadway singer Jane Froman. Froman returned to Europe on crutches in 1945 to again entertain the troops. She later married the co-pilot who saved her life in that crash, and her story was made into the 1952 film With a Song in My Heart, with Froman providing the actual singing voice.[19] Others, such as Al Jolson, the first entertainer to go overseas in World War II, contracted malaria, resulting in the loss of his lung, cutting short his tour.[24]
One author wrote that by the end of the war "the USO amounted to the biggest enterprise American show business has ever tackled. The audience was millions of American fighting men, the theatre's location: the world, the producer: USO camp shows"
In 1991,
Segregation and women in the USO
According to Emily Yellin, many of the key foot soldiers in the USO's mission were women who were "charged with providing friendly diversion for U.S. troops who were mostly men in their teens and twenties."[4] USO centers throughout the world recruited female volunteers to serve doughnuts, dance, and just talk with the troops. USO historian Julia Carson writes that this "nostalgic hour," designed to cheer and comfort soldiers, involved "listening to music – American style" and "looking at pretty girls, like no other pretty girls in the world – American girls."[25]
African-American women scrambled to rally the community around the soldiers and create programs for them. By 1946, hostesses had served more than two thousand soldiers a day while also providing facilities for the wounded and convalescent who were on leave. They went to black businesses and fraternal organizations in order to find sponsorship for their USO group, and later expanded to fulfill the needs of soldiers during the Korean War. Moreover, they worked to merge black and white USOs into one desegregated unit. As black historian Megan Shockley noted, "Their work for the desegregation of USOs had begun during World War II, and it finally paid off."[26]
Women were also key entertainers who performed at shows. Stars such as
Author Joeie Dee pointed out that "for women entertainers, traveling with the USO made it possible to be patriots and adventurers as well as professionals." She adds, however, that the G.I.s in the USO audiences "tended to see these women in a different light – as reminders of and even substitutes for their girls back home, as a reward for fighting the war, as embodiments of what they were fighting for."[27] Edward Skvarna remembers 1943, when he met Donna Reed at a USO canteen and asked her to dance. "I had never danced with a celebrity before, so I felt delighted, privileged even, to meet her. ... But I really felt she was like a girl from back home." Jay Fultz, author of a biography of Reed, states that soldiers "often wrote to her as if to a sister or the girl next door, confiding moments of homesickness, loneliness, privation and anxiety."[28]
Like much of American society and its World War II military, USOs were segregated. In
Women entertainers
One female entertainer wrote about conditions while performing:
We've played to audiences, many of them ankle deep in mud, huddled under the ponchos in the pouring rain (it breaks your heart the first two or three times to see men so hungry for entertainment.) We've played on uncovered stages, when we, as well as the audience, got rain-soaked. We've played with huge tropical bugs flying in our hair and faces; we've played to audiences of thousands of men, audiences spreading from our very feet to far up a hillside and many sitting in the trees. ... We've played to audiences in small units of 500 or so, and much oftener to audiences of 8 to 10,000. Every night we play a different place.[4]
Singer-actress-dancer Ann Miller described performing for badly wounded soldiers. She did forty-eight shows for "broken soldiers," who were mostly lying on stretchers in the lobbies of hotels, watching as she entertained them. Yellin writes, "During her last show she collapsed and had to be taken home on an Army airplane."[4] Afterwards, Miller described the experience:
We went from ward to ward to ward, singing and dancing and trying to boost the morale of these men. It was just hell. ... I just fell apart and I think the shock of seeing those men with their arms and legs blown off – it was just frightening. But when you do it, you do it. You try to help them, try to sing and dance. You try to keep their spirits up. It's heartbreaking.[4]
Korean War
In 1947, the USO was disbanded,
Many stars, both well-known and new, came to perform, including
Veterans have recalled many of the USOs events, sometimes in vivid detail:
On that cold, overcast day, there were more than five thousand troops in the audience. They sat on the ground or up on the hillside. When everyone was settled, Danny Kaye opened the show by going to the microphone, looking at his large audience, and shouting, "Who's holding back the enemy?" The GIs roared with laughter. We were thrilled to have Kaye and his entertainers in our area. We especially liked the young women in the show. Danny was okay, with his stories and jokes, but after all, we knew what American men looked like.[35]: 51
Author Linda Granfield in describing the show, writes, "For two hours, the men could forget they were soldiers at war. After the show, they returned to the fighting in the hills. Some in that audience never made it back."[35] By the end of the war, over 113,000 American USO volunteers were working at 294 centers at home and abroad.[36] And 126 units had given 5,422 performances to servicemen in Korea and the wounded in Japan.
Vietnam War
The USO was in Vietnam before the first combat troops arrived, with the first USO club opened in Saigon in April 1963. The 23 centers in Vietnam and Thailand served as many as a million service members a month, and the USO presented more than 5,000 performances during the Vietnam War featuring stars such as John Wayne, Ann-Margret, Sammy Davis Jr., Raymond Burr, Phyllis Diller, Martha Raye, Joey Heatherton, Wayne Newton, Jayne Mansfield, Redd Foxx, Rosey Grier, Anita Bryant, Nancy Sinatra, Jimmy Hawkins, Jimmy Boyd, Lola Falana, George Peppard and Bob Hope. Philip Ahn, the first actor of Korean descent to become a Hollywood star, became the first Asian American USO performer to entertain troops in Vietnam.[37]
In addition, the USO operated centers at major U.S. airports to provide a lounge and place to sleep for American servicemen between their flights. Vietnam historian James Westheider noted that the USO "tried to bring a little America to Vietnam." Volunteer American civilians, who did 18-month tours, staffed the clubs. According to Westheider, "The young women wore miniskirts – no slacks were allowed." Each club had a snack bar, gift shops, a barbershop, photo developing, overseas phone lines, and hot showers.[38]
When providing entertainment, the USO did its best to attract known stars from back home to help relieve the stresses of war. Senator John Kerry recalled how important this kind of diversion would become. He remembered a "Bob Hope Follies" USO show, which included actress Ann-Margret, Miss America, football star Rosey Grier, and others. According to Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley, "When the Swift finally made it back to the My Tho River, the crew confronted the heartbreaking sight of a huge Navy landing craft ferrying the troops back. The USO show was over." Kerry later wrote, "The visions of Ann Margret and Miss America and all the other titillating personalities who would have made us feel so at home hung around us for a while until we saw three Chinook helicopters take off from the field and presumed that our dreams had gone with them."[39]
But for GIs who saw the show, it was worth it: "We turned to watch Ann perform, and for about two minutes of American beauty, the war was forgotten. Everyone fully understood just what was really worth fighting for. ... The show was fantastic, but the escape the Bob Hope tour provided us in expectation for days before, and after, helped us keep in touch with what we were there for – God, Country, apple pie ... and Ann-Margret!"[40]
The visits by the stars meant a lot to the men and women in Vietnam. "It was not just the entertainment; it meant that they were not forgotten that far away from home," writes Westheider.[38] He adds that the tours made a "deep impression" on the stars as well. Singer and actress Connie Stevens remembered her 1969 tour with Bob Hope, when she decided to go despite the fact she had two children both under the age of two. Today, she claims that "veterans were still stopping her and thanking her for visiting Vietnam over 30 years later."[38]
Similarly, Ann-Margret during a book signing was approached by a veteran who asked her to sign a photo he took of her performing in Vietnam. Although the book's publishing representative for the signing event would not allow her to sign anything other than her book, the veteran's wife recalls:
She took one look at the photo, tears welled up in her eyes, and she said, 'This is one of my gentlemen from Viet Nam and I most certainly will sign his photo. I know what these men did for their country and I always have time for 'my gentlemen.'[41]
In November–December 1968 the Sig Sakowitz troop from Chicago performed over 36 shows in South Vietnam with the USO in: Pleiku, Dalat, Danang, Cam Ran Bay, Phu Bai, Phu Loy, Hue, Natrang, Tan Son Nhut Airbase, Saigon and places in the boonies known only to military intelligence and the lonely soldiers yearning for a taste of home. The troop consisted of Doublemint Twins Terrie and Jennie Frankel, Gaslight Club singer Sara Sue, Comedian Tony Diamond and personality Sig Sakowitz. Shows were also performed with comedian Joey Bishop of the Rat Pack.[42]
George Peppard, successful star of stage, TV and motion pictures, arrived in Vietnam for a USO HANDSHAKE TOUR in 1970 to visit the military in the hospitals and out in the "boonies."... He showed a keen interest in the men's mission while they were hungry for news of life back in the "World."... Polaroid pictures were taken by Mr. Peppard's escort officer, autographed, and given to the men.[43]
Lebanese peacekeeping
In 1983, a bloody
Carrying on a tradition he had begun in World War II of spending Christmas with U.S. forces overseas, Bob Hope and his troupe of entertainers gave a show on board the battleship USS New Jersey on December 24, 1983. Four hundred Marines stationed in Beirut attended the show.[45]
Italy
American troops have been deployed in Italy since the end of World War II. In 1988, a car bomb targeted the USO club in Naples, which killed five people including a U.S. Navy officer.
Gulf War
To support troops participating in
Afghanistan and Iraq
To support troops participating in Operations
. USO centers number more than 160 around the world. In those years, the USO opened centers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Carson, Colorado; and Afghanistan. The USO provides a variety of programs and services, including orientation programs, family events, free Internet and e-mail access, free drinks and snacks, free phone calls home and recreation services. One of the newer programs, called "USO in a Box," delivers program materials ranging from DVD players and videos to musical instruments to remote forward operating bases in Afghanistan.U.S. military personnel and their families visit USO centers more than eight million times each year.
Bruce Willis visited Baghdad, Camp Kir Kush and Camp Caldwell, Iraq around December 2003. Mr. Willis visited military bases in Iraq during his visit in Iraq.[47]
From June 8 to 11, 2009, TV personality Stephen Colbert traveled to Iraq to film his show The Colbert Report for four days in a USO sponsored event.
Other entertainers who have traveled to the Middle East to perform include
The USO has provided services for the annual "
Services
The USO provides services to troops before, during, and after deployment through staffed and unstaffed USO centers inside and outside combat zones.
Operation Phone Home
USO centers in combat zones provide free phone calls home and internet access to service members through its private telephone network and high-speed internet.
Bob Hope Legacy Reading Program
The Bob Hope Legacy Reading program allows service members record and send a video of themselves reading a book to their children at home.[50][51]
USO Care Package Program
The organization sends toiletry and snack care packages to servicemen including travel-sized hygiene products of which 170,000 were shipped in 2019, healthy snacks, and drink mixes.[52] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization assembled thousands of care packages for troops in mandatory 14-day quarantine en-route home.[53]
USO Special Delivery
The USO hosts baby showers for military parents-to-be. The baby showers allow pregnant military spouses to network and form a community while their spouses are deployed.[54]
USO2GO
USO2GO is a service that provides customizable kits to military servicemen stationed in areas without a USO Center containing toiletries and snacks, furniture, electronics, and/or anything else they might need. Since 2008, the USO has shipped more than 2,000 kits to places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and others.
Entertainment
The USO has hosted more than 8.1 million center celebrity visits across the world.[55]
Honoring Bob Hope
In 1997, the U.S. Congress honored
As a result of his non-stop entertainment to both the civilian population and the military, he received numerous other honors over the years: a
War correspondent Quentin Reynolds wrote in 1943, "He and his troupe would do 300 miles in a jeep, and give four shows ... One of the generals said Hope was a first rate military target since he was worth a division; that that's about 15,000 men. Presumably the Nazis appreciated Hope's value, since they thrice bombed towns while the comic was there."[21]
During the Vietnam War, Hope produced a number of high-rated television specials and began to perceive that the U.S. media had given him a broad endorsement to continue on his work in Vietnam. Soon after his Christmas show in Saigon in 1967, he learned that the Viet Cong had planned to launch an attack at the hotel Hope's troupe was staying at, missing them by ten minutes. According to Faith, he was later "mystified and... increasingly intolerant of the pockets of dissent. Draft-card burnings on college campuses angered him". Hope wrote in a magazine article that "Can you imagine, that people in America are burning their draft cards to show their opposition and that some of them are actually rooting for your defeat?"[57] In the spring of 1973, Hope began writing his fifth book, The Last Christmas Show, which was dedicated to "the men and women of the armed forces and to those who also served by worrying and waiting." He signed over his royalties to the USO.
His final Christmas show was during
In 2009, Stephen Colbert performing his last episode of weeklong taping in Iraq for his The Colbert Report show, carried a golf club on stage and dedicated it to Bob Hope's service for the USO.
Accountability
The USO has a paid staff of approximately 800. Additionally, more than 44,000 USO volunteers provide an estimated 371,417 hours of service annually. As reported by the USO, the unpaid volunteer to paid employee ratio overseas is 20 to 1. Within the United States, the number is "significantly higher."
The Charity Navigator gave the United Service Organizations a 3-star overall rating, a 2-star financial rating and a 4-star accountability and transparency rating.[59]
In popular culture
Captain America is seen performing in a USO tour during World War II in Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger.
See also
- Gilla Gerzon (Former director, USO Haifa)
- Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), an organisation established to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II
References
- ^ a b "Our Proud History: Important Dates in USO History". USO Web Site. USO Inc. Retrieved May 17, 2010.
- ^ "From World War II to Afghanistan: USO Marks 75th Anniversary", Department of Defense, February 5, 2016
- ^ "Happy 75th Anniversary USO!", Huffington Post, February 4, 2016
- ^ a b c d e f g h Yellin, Emily. Our Mothers' War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II, Simon and Schuster (2005)
- ^ John Whiteclay Chambers II. "USO." The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press (2000),[ISBN missing][page needed]
- ^ Nash, Bill. High Hat Sam: The Life and Times of Louisiana Governor Sam Houston Jones. Springfield, Missouri : James E. Cornwell, 2014. p. 102.
- ^ The USO, A Home Away From Home for 80 Years, by Julia Lauria-Blum, July 9, 2021
- ^ The United Service Organizations for National Defense, Inc. (USO) and the YWCAVirginia Commonwealth University
- ^ a b c d Cohan, Steven. The Road Movie Book, Routledge (1997)
- ^ "USO (United Service Organizations)". National Endowment for the Arts. December 10, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
- ^ Clairday, Robynn. Postcards from World War II, Square One Publishers (2001)
- ^ WWII USO Preservation Association. History: USO Camp Shows, Inc., accessed 15 Dec 2017.
- ^ JSTOR 3204158.
- ^ "Who is 'Tony'?". TonyAwards.com. The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards®. June 28, 1946. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
- ^ Ross, Steven J., "Little Caesar and the McCarthyist Mob" Archived November 14, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, USC
- ^ "Photo of Edward G. Robinson entertaining troops in Normandy".
- ^ Robinson, Edward G. All My Yesterdays, Hawthorn Books (1973) p. 240
- ^ Pryor, Thomas. The New York Times, June 28, 1942
- ^ a b Goldstein, Richard. "Answers About World War II in New York" The New York Times, September 29, 2010
- ^ "Radio Address on the National War Fund Drive. | The American Presidency Project". www.presidency.ucsb.edu. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
- ^ a b "Quentin Reynolds Talks on Terrific Job Big and Little Showbiz is Doing Overseas", Billboard, October 30, 1943 p. 4
- ^ Holsinger, Paul. War and American Popular Culture: a Historical Encyclopedia, Greenwood Publishing Group (1999)
- ^ Reading 1: Liberty Ships National Park Service Cultural Resources.
- ^ Abramson, Martin. "Jolson Sings Again", The Real Al Jolson (1950)
- ^ Carson, Julia. Home Away From Home: The Story of the USO, Harper & Brothers (1946)
- ^ Shockley, Megan Taylor. We, Too, are Americans: African American Women in Detroit and Richmond, 1940–55, Univ. of Illinois Press (2004)
- ^ Dee, Joeie. Hi GI, Xulon Press (2005)
- ^ "Dear Donna: A Pinup So Swell She Kept G.I. Mail", The New York Times, May 24, 2009
- ISBN 979-8849200880.
- ^ "The Organization".
- ^ Freedland, Michael. The Story of Al Jolson (1972), pp. 283–84
- ^ Akst, Harry "The Jolson Nobody Knew", Cosmopolitan, January 1951
- ^ Woolf, S.J. "Army Minstrel", The New York Times, September 27, 1942
- ^ "Marilyn Monroe Ends Korea Swing". Stars and Stripes. Stripes.com. February 23, 1954. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
- ^ a b Granfield, Linda. I Remember Korea: Veterans Tell Their Stories of the Korean War, 1950–53 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2003)
- ^ Edwards, Paul M. The Korean War, Greenwood Publishing Group (2006)
- ^ Chung, Hye Seung. Hollywood Asian, Temple Univ. Press (2006)
- ^ a b c Westheider, James E. The Vietnam War, Greenwood Publishing Group (2007)
- ^ Brinkley, Douglas. Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War HarperCollins (2004)
- ^ War-Stories.com
- ^ "Ann-Margret ... The Real WOMAN OF THE YEAR", jdeaustocp blog, April 26, 2013
- ^ "Terrie Maxine Frankel: Digital Collection: Veterans History Project (Library of Congress)". Lcweb2.loc.gov. October 26, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
- ^ Credit USO Photo/Vietnam
- ^ Levins, Hoag (October 18, 2001). "Launch your own missile from Battleship New Jersey: Warship Museum Prepares New 'Interactive' Combat Control Center". HistoricCamdenCounty.com. Retrieved May 21, 2007.
- LCCN 87-619851. Archived from the original(PDF) on August 12, 2014.
- ^ ISBN 1-55750-485-7.
- ^ "Robert J Hudson, Master Sergeant USMC Retired. MSgt. Hudson was Commanding Officer (contracted Major in USA) for First Company Commander for first and Second and Battalion for the New Iraq Army training Program. in the NIATP (New Iraqi Army Training Program) under Vinnell Corporation, Program Director Lieutenant General George Allen Crocker (when meeting Mr Willis)". mrfa.org. Archived from the original on November 16, 2012. Retrieved May 7, 2013.
- ^ Louis C.K's USO Blog, louisck.net Archived July 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "2006 to 2009 Tour Schedule". Archived from the original on January 29, 2010. Retrieved January 22, 2010.
- ^ "How the USO Helps Service Members and Their Families (Podcast)". www.philanthropy.com. March 13, 2020. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
- ^ "USO Spreads Cheer to Military Serving Around the Globe This Holiday Season". Look to the Stars. December 3, 2020. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
- ^ "USO supports deployed Soldiers in Poland with care packages". DVIDS. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
- ^ "Troops Returning Home from Deployment to Quarantines Find Support in the USO". United Service Organizations. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
- ^ "USO center opens at Naval Submarine Base in Groton". The Day. June 17, 2021. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
- ^ "Programs". United Service Organizations. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
- ^ "Bob Hope: First and only honorary veteran of the Armed Forces", Army Live, August 19, 2014
- ^ a b c d e Faith, William. Bob Hope: A Life in Comedy, Da Capo Press (2003)
- ^ Military Order of the Purple Heart, Legacy of the Purple Heart, 4th Ed., Turner Publishing Co. (2001)
- ^ United Service Organizations - Charity Navigator
External links
- Official website
- Bob Hope USO (Southern California Area)
- USO Clubs in World War II
- "Entertaining the Troops" film, public television, 1 hour
- Bob Hope USO studio show video recording
- Movie clips: WWII tour, from Jolson Sings Again (1949)
- USO World Gala, 2008: President Bush speech Text and video, October 1, 2008
- The short film Big Picture: United Service Organization (USO): Wherever They Go is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film Staff Film Report 66-25A (1966) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- The short film USO – 30 Years of Service (1971) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- USO Camp Shows publicity records, 1941–1955, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- United Service Organizations, Inc.: hearing before the Subcommittee on Administrative Law and Governmental Relations of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, first session ... December 9, 1975.