Singing Jet Pilot War Vet, Milton Herman, Part 2

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What's your PI.

That piano intro is 92 year old milton Herman.

This is part two with air force, singing, pilot and instructor.

Milton Herman.

Mary, Milton's wife who was heard here on this episode, passed away recently.

This episode is of course, dedicated to Mary.

Michelle Herman is also here with her parents.

When I was going to college at New Mexico Highlands University, I

took a lot of music and we'd sit on the stairs there and almost everybody there

would talk about, oh gosh, I'd like to get a job teaching music, but many of

them would say, gee, you know, I would love to give a concert at Carnegie hall.

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I didn't even know what Carnegie hall was.

I'm probably the only one from Las Vegas that's ever given

a program in Carnegie Hall.

We got invited because I was part of the West Point Glee Club because

That was with the chorus, we might've had a piano accompaniment

because Jackie Gleason was probably

on a TV

show.

One of the primary early TV shows.

And why were you on the Jackie

Gleason show?

The West Point Glee Club, we're just sort of famous and known and

they invited us and military people at Westpoint allowed us to do it.

So we went.

So how long were you in the West Point Glee Club?

All four years.

I was able to get in it when I was a freshman.

But we were called plebes.

And in Greek armies, that was the lowest ranking soldier, I guess.

And they had to do everything.

So that's just, what's the slang name?

We're actually Freshman.

We were on ed Sullivan show.

That was all four years.

It was the same thing.

He invited the chorus to Shang and we sang a couple of numbers

in the early days of TV.

Those were the prime

shows.

Everybody wanted to get on the show.

All of the name entertainers, which I suspect, I don't know, either

performed for free or very small fee.

You feel heard

by the American public outside of Carnegie Hall.

And so early TV was incredible.

Jackie Gleason show had every name, entertainer, Ed Sullivan,

every name, entertainer

in the world.

Yeah.

And I never thought to tell my folks about any of those.

Usually we only had a few weeks notice anyway, but I knew they

couldn't attend And I didn't even know if they had TV themselves.

So I never told my folks about any of that.

I know some people saw me because I have a friend that he tells me I

was there sitting with my friends.

And then look, there's Milt Herman from Las Vegas.

yeah.

When you were, um, y'all had to get up in your dress, whites to go to the

parade.

That was for the inauguration parade for Eisenhower.

We were 2,400 strong at that time, so that I think they took half of

us, maybe just a quarter of us.

Anyway, I was in part of the group we were part of the inauguration parade.

So we took our whites and we wore the top part while we

were being transported by bus.

And then we stopped as we were getting to New York or in New York city got out and

changed pants from the grays to the white.

So, and then we stood up on the bus so we wouldn't crease them

Gosh!,

I don't think hardly anybody even knew that or noticed it

so that they would still be starched and looking sharp during the parade

so, we could then sit down after the parade was over and on that same

occasion, uh, I was in Glee Club then.

And.

They were eight parties for the Eisenhower integration and all

of them were held in big areas.

I got to go to one of them where we our glee club was there and we sang a couple

of songs when Eisenhower came in with his wife, we sang a song 'Once in Love

with Maime', because that was her signed name, Maime, 'Once in Love with Maime'.

Most popular song in the day, it was a song

called "once in love with Amy".

Um, similar

and

we changed it

to Maime

using Mrs.

Eisenhower's name,

which was Maime,

yeah, Maime..

So when they came in, we sang that song, which we heard because we couldn't tell

a great big auditorium, it was like being in a double gym, like being in the pit.

That's how big the room was..

So when Ike came through there, then we sang that song plus a couple of

Did you feel anything or was it just a

little bit of excitement?

So it was exciting.

A pain in the butt too..

Because that's sort

of hard work and it's sort of hot.

And then we got to actually do what we're doing all the time was, is

march and keep order and then we want to be perfect and the rifles.

So it's a chore, even though sort of fun, but it was also a choice.

And

so you're all trying to be in unison, no creased pants.

I think that is hilarious.

You didn't want them wrinkled.

Most of us thought that was really silly, what they were going to March in a parade.

Who's going to see us.

We'll just the people that around there.

I'm

going to look for

. Milton Herman: Now we did walk in front of

I bet you wouldn't even have noticed it either, even though he was a West Pointer

so Michelle had been going through some of your things and she found

this album of when you were singing.

You were a civilian singer as well?

As in the

military.

Okay.

And how did you get to Vienna to sing??

Because this civilian put on which I was part of whenever

they had a concert, usually I could be there cause I was also in the

military, so I might not have been there, but I was able to be there.

So we gave concerts different places and started charging for

it to make $150,000 to pay for airline tickets to go to Vienna.

That's what it cost at that time to send about a hundred of us to Vienna.

Wow.

We had a lady that was very good pianist who served served with

the chorus was our accompanist.

Our director was named Hesh.

Uh, they were just pretty good leaders and had enough had enough people that

knew German and maybe had lived in Germany that they made arrangements and got places

for us to stay on the trip and got us on the airplane and got us off of it.

Been a wonderful experience.

Every place we went, we gave concerts.

So we did a parade in that course, we happen to have one member that

was an actual Indian chief at one of the Indian tribes in Arizona.

And he went with us and he dressed in his Indian garb.

So every place we went, he was usually in that Indian garb.

So he was a hero

every place we stopped when we'd go eat something.

There's nothing else for us to do.

So usually after we ate, we almost always gave a two or three song

concert at wherever we were eating.

And so therefore we knew the music really very

well.

And what types of songs did you sing

for that Fiesta there and Vienna

we sang a German Shaun, which I was told, cause I didn't know German, that

it was about, uh, the memories of being back in your home country during war.

And uh, when that concert went on and we sang that last the audience all

started crying and we could see it before, you know, it, all of us were

crying because of the emotional impact.

Everyone in the audience started crying and

everyone's singing started crying.

And I happened to just look through a stack of albums and I pull out

the album from his glee club.

And on the back of the album is the description of how they all went

to Vienna, Austria, and the whole

audience was in tears.

Yeah, that was a big one of the biggest auditoriums in Vienna, Austria.

So there must have been a couple of thousand people in that concert.

We were a fantastic hit.

We got written up in newspapers.

We did make a record of some of those songs, which I think

I have a copy of that record.

I listened to it maybe once or twice when I first got it, but I don't

think I've listened to it since.

I probably couldn't sing any of those songs again, but I'm sure I'd remember.

So I do remember the Schoenberg palace.

There's a famous palace in Austria.

We got a tour of that.

So we got to see one of the rooms, which was plated in gold.

During the war they had stripped all that and hid it in some mines and caves.

But when we were there, they'd put it all back in that room again,

I've been in a gold-plated room

well, you have done some wonderful, amazing activities

in your long, wonderful life.

And this has really been thrilling.

Are you going to sing us a song?

my favorite song if I did do that as God bless America.

Now, when I was younger, I wouldn't do any of that kind of stuff.

And then as I got older, And more willing to sing solo.

I don't have a fantastic voice, but I have a good voice.

Mean lots of times I do have a nice voice, but I wasn't interested much

in opera and that kind of stuff.

So I could voice lessons.

It was mostly for the courses.

In Saigon, I wanted to hear music.

So I happened to buy a set of speakers and a tape recorder.

And I played some tapes of some of these things when I was in Vietnam.

We sent the tapes back and forth.

I'm sure your mom and dad must've done that.

We did audio tapes.

We had letters.

What we'd had audio tapes also, I would tape over his and he would

tape over mine which is a shame

. Milton Herman: I have a couple of

Oh, actually, when he did break out in songs, you know,

have you ever gone to the movie theater here on Kirtland air force base?

Well, I don't know if they still do.

It used to be a tradition.

So they would sing the star Spangled banner.

I did it a couple of times, but it really wasn't a tradition, but it

was okay, but it just embarrassed.

Uh, he had to stand up when it was playing and he was the

only one in the theater with a booming voice, singing the star Spangled banner.

And we were crawling under the seats, horrifying embarrassment

at the end, every time.

Oh, say, can you see by the Dawn's early light,

I just burst it out and sang

, Catherine: wow.

And that is such a wonderful place to end right here is with your absolute

wonderful voice and your services.

And obviously your absolute wonderful positive imprints.

Thank you again, Milt Oh,

you're welcome.

Listen to part one episode one hundred, one hundred and seventy four.

Oh my gosh.

With Milton Herman, as he shares interesting historical perspectives

during the world war II era.

Along with, of course, his experiences during different wars in his lifetime

as an instructional air force pilot, a singing pilot for that matter.

And thank you listeners again for entering the contest last week.

And for sending me feedback on the types of episodes you'd

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