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Lee Marvin and Captain Kangaroo… Partners in War?

Netlore Archive: In a story allegedly told by actor Lee Marvin on The Tonight Show, he recalls serving in combat with fellow US Marine Bob ‘Captain Kangaroo’ Keeshan, whom he called ‘the most brave that I have known

Description: misleading email

Status: False

In circulation since: March 2002

Analysis: See below

Example of email contributed by F. Abbott, March 20, 2002:

Subject: FW: Bravery

“Never judge a book by its cover.”

Dialogue from a Johnny Carson “Tonight” show. His guest was Lee Marvin. Johnny said, “Lee, I bet a lot of people don’t know that you were a Marine on the initial landing on Iwo Jima and that during the course of that action, you earned the Navy Cross and were seriously injured.”

Lee Marvin’s response was:

“Yeah yeah… I got shot in the ass and got the Cross for securing a hot spot in the middle of Mount Suribachi. The bad thing about getting shot up a mountain is getting shot at the guys dragging you down.” But “Johnny, on Iwo, I served under the bravest man I ever knew. We both received the Cross on the same day, but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap by comparison. The dumb bastard stood on Red Beach and led his troops forward and off the beach. That sergeant and I have been lifelong friends.”

“When they took me out of Suribachi, we walked past him and he lit a cigarette and passed it to me lying face down on the bunk. ‘Where did they take you from, Lee?’ you get home before me, tell mom to sell the latrine.

“Johnny, I’m not lying, Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man I’ve ever met!” You now know him as Bob Keeshan. You and the world know him as “Captain Kangaroo”.

Comments: Despite various grains of truth sprinkled throughout, including the fact that both actor Lee Marvin and Bob “Captain Kangaroo” Keeshan were Marines during WWII (Keeshan a reservist), and that Marvin was actually injured in the buttocks while storming a beachhead (although on Saipan, not Iwo Jima), the story is fundamentally false. According to their respective biographies, Marvin had already been injured and sent back to the United States with a Purple Heart by the time Keeshan entered basic training. They could not have met in combat. Neither man was awarded the Navy Cross.

At the age of 20, Lee Marvin was a private in the US 4th Marine Division, part of the Allied landing force that invaded the Japanese-controlled Pacific island of Saipan on 15 July 1944. He was wounded three days later, on July 18. he spent the next 13 months in Navy hospitals recovering from a severe sciatic nerve and was released in 1945.

Bob Keeshan enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve shortly before his 18th birthday in 1945. Since the war was almost over by the time he finished basic training, it is unlikely that Keeshan saw combat before completing his service a year later. much less reached the rank of sergeant.

Those old enough to remember Lee Marvin’s occasional appearances on television shows up until his death in 1987 will find that the manner and spirit of the narrative are reminiscent of the man himself, but it seems unlikely that he would have trumpeted such blatant lies about him. another man’s service record. via national television, nor have I been able to find any evidence in the form of tapes or transcripts to show that he did.

Update: A version of this message circulating since March 2003 includes an addendum stating that Fred Rogers, host of the public television show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” was a former Marine sniper (or, in another version, a Navy Seal) with dozens of wartime deaths to his credit. This is also false.