“Those guys blew it,” Rinaldi said. Comedian Bob Hope and singer Phil Crosby, holding a "Make Love Not War" sign, open Hope's annual USO Christmas Show tour at Da Nang, Vietnam, with Raquel Welch and singer Barbara McNair, left, on Dec. 19, 1967.

2 quotes from Tom Rinaldi: 'To me, that's what makes college so great and unique, as opposed to the pros. Rinaldi was in Memphis for eight months, including on April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. There was a problem saving your notification. We feel the heat and the next thing you know, those guys are toast.”, The mortar rounds had been coming from a hillside adjacent to the airbase. St. Helenan Tom Rinaldi visits Vietnam 50 years after his first deployment. Their job was electronic surveillance, using sophisticated radar. The photo is from a yearbook, "The Anchor." On April 1, 1969, Rinaldi’s EC-121 landed at Chu Lai airbase, which was then controlled by the Americans and later overrun by the North Vietnamese. Tom Rinaldi is a reporter for ESPN and ABC based in New York. In 2020, for ESPN Films, he co-directed the documentary “Blackfeet Boxing:  Not Invisible,” detailing the plight of murdered and missing indigenous women, and the efforts of the Blackfeet Boxing Club in Montana, in helping girls and young women learn the power of boxing, and self defense. I got on my motorcycle and headed to the base,” he said, which is when he learned about the assassination. Rinaldi is also the author of The Red Bandanna: A Life, A Choice, A Legacy, detailing the heroism and tragic death of Boston College athlete Welles Crowther during 9/11. You could be there forever,” Rinaldi said. He also did features for the horse racing telecasts.Rinaldi joined ESPN in May 2003 following a four-year stint as a reporter for CNN/SI from 1998-2002. Sports Illustrated’s media critic at the time, Richard Deitsch, called the story “the best feature I’ve ever watched on ESPN.” The piece won the national Edward R. Murrow award for best news documentary. The list of events he has covered, the range of stories he’s told, and the platforms and programs he serves, crosses the broadest spectrum of sports. This is my first day in Vietnam and it would’ve been Memorial Day, because I would’ve died.”, In a panic, he calls on the radio and says, “We’re taking fire.”. “It was a calm voice, telling me to relax, that it’s OK, we’ve got some company coming your way. — of fighting a gunner in a helicopter because he was killing water buffalo down below; — of his favorite job — disposing of old ordnance, including 30-caliber rounds and hand grenades; — a Bob Hope USO show with an actor singing a weird version of “MacArthur Park,” a song he never heard when it was released in April 1968; — a trip up Two Lovers Point in Guam with a concussion grenade being thrown into the Pacific Ocean. If you've binged every available episode of the hit Disney Plus series, then we've got three picks to keep you entertained. After additional training in Memphis, Rinaldi would be deployed in Vietnam in April 1969. “Each of us had a couple of black boxes on our shoulders, we’re heading off the plane, heading to the base and a mortar round hits. In addition, Rinaldi has covered the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Final Four, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup, and the Olympics.