Veteran takes in tribute to USO band

More than 50 years after Col. Bill Tate watched Bob Hope’s legendary holiday USO show live on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, he saw the show come back to life on stage at the Winter Park Playhouse.

Tate, who served in the Marines for 30 years, watched Bob Hope make magic behind a microphone twice in his military career. The first time was in the middle of the Vietnam War while serving in the Philippines, and the second time was back on American soil when the entertainer brought his show to SeaWorld in Orlando in the 1970s. By then, Tate was happy to call Winter Park home.

Before the Orlando show, Tate found himself chatting with Hope in his dressing room.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” he said.

“…Just being with him was enough to make you want to love what you’re doing.”

Tate saw the late-Bob Hope’s spirit embodied back on stage again last month, as he attended a performance of the USO-themed musical “All Hands on Deck” at the Winter Park Playhouse, which is showing through Oct. 9.

“They did a beautiful job,” Tate said of the show. “…It’s the best show that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them.”

Tate has been a loyal supporter of the Winter Park Playhouse since Hurricane Charlie blew through Central Florida in 2004. The storm knocked down the fence between his house and his neighbors’ home. Mending the fence would end up building a friendship between him and those neighbors, Roy Alan and Heather Alexander of the Winter Park Playhouse.

They convinced him to come check out a show shortly afterward at the small, professional theater.

“I have been in love with this place ever since,” Tate said. “…I love this community and they have done so much for this community.”

And the love affair goes both ways, said Lisa Melillo, director of marketing for the Playhouse.

“Winter Park is lucky to have you, Col. Tate,” she said.

Tate settled here after three decades as a Marine.

He boarded his first flight into a war zone in 1953 just as the Korean War came to a close. He’d return to Southeast Asia, and serve on the ground as the Vietnam War broke out.

“Whatever combat I missed in Korea, I got in Vietnam,” he said.

He’d climb the ranks to be named as the officer in charge of plans, programs and operations for the Marine Division consisting of 33,000 Marines stationed throughout 700 square miles during Vietnam.

Raised with the manners of a southern gentleman in his hometown of Lynchburg, Va., Tate said, in his signature drawl, that he was never much concerned with his rank.

“My job was to take care of the troops, and to treat those troops as human beings,” he said.

Today, he’s still supporting the troops by serving on the board of directors of the Central Florida Veterans Memorial Foundation. The group recently raised funds to place a veterans memorial outside of the new Lake Nona VA hospital.

“I always want to help other people,” Tate said. “…I believe in teamwork.”

Tate said ever since he stepped foot inside the Winter Park Playhouse he’s admired the teamwork that pulls together to put on the self-producing theater’s performances.

“Every show is bringing people together,” he said.

The theater’s most recent production, “All Hands on Deck,” just happens to bring together Tate’s past and present on stage.