Heroes for Hire

The Blue Network, the N. W. Ayer ad agency and Hires Root Beer finally got their war heroes straightened out last week. For three weeks a new Blue show called Heidt Time for Hires (Mon., 7 p.m., E.W.T.) has featured honorably discharged servicemen who aired their war records, said what they would like to work at and where. They were supposed to get job offers before the show ended. They did. The trouble was that at first nobody took pains to investigate the applicants thoroughly.

A technical sergeant who said he was Stanley Hawrylytz turned up on the first show with a tale of knocking off a igman Jap patrol on Kiska, for which (he said) he got a Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, a Purple Heart and a serious foot wound. He said his home was in Erie, Pa. He wanted a job in Alaska. He got an offer. U.S. Army records later disclosed that his right name was Harvilick, his home address was actually Springboro, Pa., there was no record of overseas service or citations. And there were, of course, no live Japs on Kiska when the U.S. took over the Aleutian island last August.

Beer and Sunshine. Private Henry Holloway, Negro, late of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, said he had been honorably discharged for an injury suffered while transporting boxes. "Henry offered his life to his country," boomed the professionally cheerful voice of Bandmaster Horace Heidt, "what will the country offer Henry?" While awaiting the answer, someone babbled "There's family cheer in Hires Root Beer" and the band played You Are My Sunshine. There was just one thing wrong with Henry's story: he had gotten his injury by tumbling off a boxcar while watching a crap game.

Bona Fide Boys. Publicity preceding the show's debut said that the ex-servicemen had been sifted through the United States Employment Service, Veterans Administration, and Army & Navy public relations offices. Actually, U.S.E.S. had supplied one of the men, the other came from a hospital. No one had checked their credentials against Army-Navy records.

But last week Heidt Time produced two apparently bona fide candidates. One was a signalman who had served on the aircraft carrier Enterprise', the other was a U.S. Army tank-destroying veteran of Tunisia. Both men got job offers.

Despite its erratic beginning, Heidt Time showed several virtues: 1) it called widespread attention to the fact that some 1,000,000 servicemen have been discharged from active service, that many of them want and need jobs; 2) it drew an enthusiastic response (hundreds of job offers). The show also provided a beautiful example of the U.S. tendency to convert any serious human situation, if possible, into some form of sales ballyhoo.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.