Jeep Show: A Trouper at the Battle of the Buldge

In December 1944, as German forces launched their surprise counterattack in the Ardennes, U.S. Army Private Jim Tanzer was carrying a rifle. He didn’t expect to fire it.

Jim is an enlisted entertainer in the Army’s Morale Corps (MOS 442), one of the little-known performers sent to sustain the morale of combat infantry at the front, where the USO could not go.

Assigned to a Jeep show unit led by fellow enlisted entertainer Mickey Rooney, Jim performs for weary soldiers just a mile or two from the fighting. It’s risky duty, but still safer than combat.

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