 This is a story about an American soldier boy named Private Grover Henson, a Hollywood composer-record producer named Christian Wilde, an intellectual educator-lecturer-comedian named Bill Cosby and a Grammy Award nomination.
Almost lost somewhere in the shuffle is the fact that the details that follow would have never materialized if it had not been for the fact that America at war causes politicians and military guys to do strange things that often brings sadness and grief to innocent people whose youngsters go off to defend their country somewhere while their parents and loved ones remain at home not knowing if they will ever see them again.
And then there are lonely servicemen isolated on some Pork Chop Hill, somewhere, or becoming a desert rat and wondering if they’ve been forgotten by everybody because they get no mail. War has always been a wasteful political maneuver when it comes to money and men. And the military is never very particular when it comes to selecting warm bodies to defend this country while spending tons of money in the process.
Life in the military is a lot different from being a hometown hero. I remember being “locked up” in a barracks for a coupla weeks once while going through basic training in the Air Force, with a bunch of guys with shaved heads I’d never seen before. They were from all parts of the country, and most of them had never been away from home.
There were Caucasians, American Indians, Afro-Americans, Jews, Hispanics and Latins who had left family and friends at home in little hick towns in Utah, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Arizona and Colorado.
The Drill Instructor took a survey one day and there were only two guys in the whole barracks who had been to college, and I was the only one who had earned a degree. (I’m not bragging. As a college grad, I was chosen by the Drill Instructor to be the Squadron Leader, and this responsibility opened my eyes rather quickly to the fact that life in the military was quite different, indeed, to life as a civilian).
I had very little in common with any of those guys except for the fact that I had a girlfriend back home who religiously wrote me letters day after day. She told me about everything that was happening and some stuff I didn’t wanna know was happening. I loved getting the letters, even though it made me homesick. But some guys never got any mail.
There were days when I got maybe a half-dozen letters at Mail Call. It made me feel so sorry for the poor guys who never got any mail that one day I took a few of my favorite letters out of my footlocker and “loaned” them to my lonely buddies.
Which brings me to the subject of Private Grover Henson. As far as I know, Private Grover Henson never saluted an officer, never pulled KP, never mopped a barracks floor and never had guard duty in the hot Texas sun. That’s because Private Grover Henson wasn’t a real soldier boy, he was just a made-up one.
There may have been a real Private Grover Henson one day for all I know, but if there was, I never met him or read his name on a squadron bulletin board. I did hear his name on the radio one day, though, when he was talkin’ about goin’ to Mail Call again and then goin’ back to the foxhole again empty-handed.
What a drag. Can you imagine some lonely G.I. sittin’ out there somewhere in the rain wondering if he was forgotten, no one would even know or cared if he died because nobody in his hometown or the county in which he grew up had ever bothered to write to him?
 Then, one day, the Master Sergeant called out his name and Private Grover Henson raised his arm and almost ran to the guy with all the stripes on his shoulder. He was so proud, he carried his letter around with him all day before he finally got enough courage to open it. At last, finally, the moment had arrived.
Private Grover Henson had himself a letter, by golly, and it had come to him from the nation’s capital. When he opened it, his happiness almost immediately turned to depression. It was his income tax return, and it said he owed a hundred bucks.
One day ol’ Grover couldn’t take it any more. So, he wrote himself a letter, signed it “Your loving mother” and addressed it to “My favorite son.” This poor guy was so lonely he wasn’t worried about getting himself killed in action; he just didn’t want to die alone and forgotten in the rain on some God forsaken hill.
So one day he prayed to God for somebody to send him a letter. Before it was too late. That’s the way the song on the radio ended, with the soldier boy hunkered down there in the rain on foreign soil, forgotten and afraid, defending his country simply because it was his duty.
 Private Grover Henson was the creation of a multi-talented composer/producer friend of mine in Hollywood back in the 70s named Christian Wilde.
Chris had been a classically trained singer, originally, and had one of those beautiful Mario Lanza-type voices that made young girls swoon. But after making all the rounds in Hollywood, he soon found out that his voice was considered too good for pop music at that time; “it wasn’t commercial.”
So, Chris swallowed his pride and decided he would write these wonderful hit songs for all the other guys to record who were “commercial” and he would produce their record sessions and make them famous, (and probably get rich in the process).
He had enough sense to know that every record label on the west coast was looking for a hit song, and he had a breadbox full. He also knew the guys who were looking for the songs, too, because most of them had told him to pack his bags and go to New York where trained singers were appreciated.
Chris had a plan and it wasn’t unlike other singer-songwriters. When he got his paychecks and tips from the parking lots where he valet parked cars, he put them in the bank and waited until he had saved up enough loot to rent a recording studio, hire musicians and cut a demo tape. It didn’t matter if it was a country song, a gospel tune, a blues number or a ballad, Chris, the ex-opera singer, cut the vocal. Then, he’d go peddle the songs to all the guys who had told him his chances were better in New York.
In those ragamuffin-type days, Chris was always on the verge of being overdrawn at the bank and barely had enough money in his account to pay the rent and recording bills. One day, his own “personal banker,” a young struggling singer-bank teller named Harry Nilsson (who was later discovered by the Beatles), called and asked me to persuade Chris to “be cool” about financing a major recording session of 28 musicians with his hard saved money. (Incidentally, Harry would many years later record a song written by Chris and Scotty Turner in the UK).
I tried to convince Chris to find another way, but it was bad timing on my part. He had just written this dramatic “heart-throbbing” number about Private Grover Henson and had already scheduled the session. As I recall, some of Hollywood’s finest studio musicians were hired for the date. (Two of the three-member trumpet section, the Condoli brothers, later became Hall of Famers).
Thirty eight musicians were used on the recording with solid arrangements by Don Hockett. Although the session turned out very well, indeed, nobody wanted to touch it, thinking that it was too controversial a piece of material for the climate of the times. And, particularly, a difficult sell without a known artist on the track. Everyone told Christian what his master needed was a well known star in Hollywood reciting his emotional Private Grover Henson lyrics:
World, I’m writing you this letter, and world, I’m not the kind of guy who likes to complain—but this morning, Private Grover Henson really felt forgotten. You couldn’t have picked a worse time, world, to drop that lonely morning rain.
Mail Call again this morning world, and I just disappeared from the end of the line,
World, I guess you’d say I’ve run out of excuses about those lost letters of mine.
Did you know that last year’s income tax was the only mail I’ve gotten?
They said I still owed a hundred bucks.
And Grover Henson feels forgotten.
So, I wrote myself a letter –and I must have read it to just about everyone,.
I signed it Your Loving Mother and I addressed it to Her favorite Son
And God knows I’ve never known her,
And I’ve never been in love,
And the only dad I ever had was my father up above.
And, world, Grover Henson feels forgotten in this early morning rain.
World, if my time should come tomorrow, could I ask one thing of you?
Would you send me one little letter, world, if it’s not too much to do?
And could you have it read to me by a choir? So I’d hear it wherever I lie.
And Grover Henson wouldn’t feel forgotten, if his time should come to die.
Everybody loved the lyrics and the melody for “Private Grover Henson.” It was hard to hold back the tears. Nobody, however, wanted to do the recording. Some said it wasn’t their bag, others said it was too controversial and nobody at a record label would touch it. What Chris thought would be “an easy sell” had turned out to be a “no sell.” So Chris was sorta stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The record labels didn’t want the song without a major star, and the major stars were shying away from anything that might taint them as supporting the war.
Chris was far from dejected, however. He knew lots of good singers who had become major stars warbling one of his tunes. It was just a matter of time, he figured, before he’d find the perfect guy, and go back to his label contacts and knock their socks off. Except, this time, Chris needed an actor, not a singer.
 It wasn’t necessary, but Chris publicly credited me with suggesting that he submit his master to Bill Cosby, a popular actor-comedian we, of course, all know and love, who had at that time scored with a successful TV series after doing “standup” routines at comedy clubs on the Sunset Strip and virtually every major TV variety show.
I remember the day, Chris went to Russ Regan (President of Uni/MCA Records) with a demo of “Private Grover Henson” and asked him to listen to it. A few days later his office called and said Cosby had reservations about doing the record, because he was concerned about the reaction of the anti-war crowd, which was pretty agitated at that time.
When a publicity blurb appeared in a column in the Hollywood Reporter saying that Cosby might record the “Grover Henson” talk record, a number of influential people in the entertainment industry were very vocal about it, saying the star would indirectly be promoting the war if he did the record.
To the contrary, Chris reasoned, the song “Grover Henson” was actually “supporting” the servicemen in uniform who had no choice at all whether or not they were sent to Vietnam. They were there, and their plight, unfortunately, forgotten in the clash of public opinion about the war on the home front.
Finally, the executives representing Cosby challenged Chris to find an answer. “If you can come up with an idea for a record promo that projects G.I. Joe in a manner that is respectful of all GI’s and not any particular race represented in the promo, Bill would think about the possibility,” they said.
Chris and I talked about it and decided we would solve the problem, somehow. As it turned out, it was a rather simple resolution. I arranged for this hot shot PR firm to audition actors for models of Private Grover Henson for billboard and national print media advertisements. After picking the finalists and choosing their guy, they photographed him in helmet and battle fatigues, clutching his rifle in a muddy foxhole while the sun was going down.
 You knew this guy was a U.S. soldier boy, but his face was in the shadows and partially covered by his hand and you really couldn’t tell if he was black, white or green. It didn’t matter, he was an American G.I. doing his duty, defending his country on a lonely battlefield in the rain.
The P.R. firm hired an advertising agency. They launched this nifty promotional campaign all over America urging people to support the troops in battle against the enemy by writing letters to Private Grover Henson and his GI. buddies, telling them to keep their chin up, that at least some of the people back home were rooting for them. It became a major national crusade.
Advertisements in national magazines and newspapers read:
Who is Private Grover Henson?
There are thousands of Grover Hensons sitting in muddy foxholes today who feel forgotten.
They might as well be faceless, too, because to them, nobody really gives a damn who they are.
They wear the uniform of our country, risking their lives for us because it is their duty.
Loneliness plays no favorites. Neither the black man nor the white man gets singled out for special attention.
Nobody asks if you’re a Protestant, Jew or Catholic, or if you’ve paid your income tax.
If you wear a G.I. uniform and have a dog tag around your neck, you qualify.
Letters poured in for “Grovers” from all over the world, and in the USA, from major cities, coast to coast, as well as from little hole-in-the-wall places you never heard of like Bug Tussle and Happy. In classrooms across the country, little third and fourth graders were writing letters addressed to Grover Henson, saying: “I will be your friend, Grover,” and correspondence was exchanged.
 The Red Cross and other agencies, such as the USO’s Operation Mail Call, for the first time in their long history, tied into a commercial product and had so many mail bags full of letters for lonely American servicemen, they had to get the Army’s special services division to pick up the mail in trucks and deliver them to designated Mail Call areas for distribution.
Lonely American servicemen, who hadn’t received any mail from family or friends at home, suddenly began answering “Here” when a letter for Private Grover Henson was proudly announced at Mail Call.
Even owners of NFL pro football teams, including the Oakland Raiders, jumped on the Grover Henson bandwagon, staging special half time shows in their stadiums honoring Grover Henson.
So, what had started out as a little simple promotion for the Christian Wilde-Bill Cosby “Private Grover Henson” record turned into a major national phenomenon. And there-in lies a bizarre finale to this tale.
 While thousands of Private Grover Hensons, fighting the war in Vietnam and other outposts in the world were getting tons of mail from folks back home in the good ol’ U.S.A. and patriotism was at an all-time high, all the publicity and Hollywood hype managed to get “Private Grover Henson Feels Forgotten” nominated for a 1971 Grammy Award. The record ranked number 13 on the national “Easy Listening” charts at one time and garnered 40 percent of the radio stations within two weeks. It also ranked number 36 in the category for Novelties Greatest Songs.
The record made the Cash Box 100, in the number 75 slot. But, alas, today, “Private Grover Henson Feels Forgotten” ranks number 70 in the Top Forgotten Hits in History.
 “Grover Henson Feels Forgotten” had great airplay on the radio, but the Bill Cosby Uni record was never “mainlined” to the general public at major national record store distribution outlets. It was included, however (on the eighth track) of a Best of Bill Cosby album, which featured novelty songs titled “Froofie the Dog,” “Football,” ‘My Brother, Russell,” Fat Albert Got a Hernia,” “Ennis’ Toilet” and “Why Beat Your Wife?”
Today, a “Private Grover Henson Feels Forgotten” 45 is a rare collector’s item. But composer and former record producer Christian Wilde is far from forgotten.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and “Grover Henson Feels Forgotten” was nominated for a Grammy in 1970.
Thirty-three years after Grover Henson was forgotten, Christian Wilde has authored a best-selling, critically-acclaimed book titled “Hidden Causes of Heart Attack and Stroke” (inflammation cardiology’s newest frontier) and will be remembered through the ages as the guy who not only created Private Grover Henson but also figured out how to explain “in layman’s language,” to common folks with heart and cardiovascular problems, new methodologies and strategies on how to detect and neutralize hidden family history risk factors and perhaps survive or reverse the inevitable.
“Until this book, a reliable resource for the patient was simply not available as the subject is vast and complicated,” noted John Rumberger, M.D.. PH.D., FACC, Professor of Medicine, at Ohio State and former Clinical Professor at the Mayo Clinic.
Getting the information about Wilde’s book out to the public became a major priority in the medical profession. People, who probably never heard the record “Grover Henson Feels Forgotten” on the radio, became aware of Wilde’s literary contribution to society, when the author became a popular radio personality himself, after the book’s publication.
Wilde has been a guest on 83 regular radio interview shows in the past 7 months, including 250 syndicated stations on Daybreak America on USA Radio; 2,000 stations on CNN Radio; three times on WBZ and worldwide on Voice/America.
 (Note: If any of the readers of my column have heart disease in their family’s history or if any readers are dealing with any cardiovascular issue, let me recommend you take a look at “Hidden Causes of Heart Attack and Stroke.” You may order toll free, 800 214-8110 or read about the book on the publisher’s website www.abigon.com; you may also order it at your local bookstore if it’s not in stock). You can also order from Amazon.com by clicking below
People who had known Christian for years, when he was a hip Hollywood “hotdog” burning up the sidewalks on Sunset Blvd. peddling his music product to record labels, were somewhat surprised, and shocked, when they heard the news about his authorship of a new medical hit blockbuster.
 I first found out about Wilde’s authorship of the best-selling book on the Ventures website. The popular recording artists, who became the world’s largest selling instrumental group of all time, selling 90-million albums, have recorded 14 of Christian’s compositions over the years. In 1970, Wilde had convinced Don Wilson of the group to let him produce a collection of 13 country songs, but this time with Don singing. Here is a strange piece of irony: those songs were finally released in a new CD in Japan in October of this year, 34 years later, giving a whole new meaning to the word patience What goes around, comes around.
 The Ventures continued to rack up sales and break all records on their Japanese tours - and Wilde’s musical reputation was Venturing right along with them, while he was also blazing new trails in medical record history.
When I made contact again with Chris, after all these years, and congratulated him on the success of his book, it was only natural to ask if a heart problem had caused him to write “How to Detect and Neutralize Hidden Causes of Heart Attack and Stroke.”
The guy, who had recordings by Tom Jones, Glenn Yarbrough, PJ Proby and many other artists, said he didn’t have a heart attack, but after becoming aware that 50 percent of all heart attacks in America happen to people with so-called “normal cholesterol,” he wanted to write the most complete book based on what there might be available in the research community - which is basicly 15-20 years ahead of the practicing office - in order to spare lives and needless tragedy. As he told me, “Don, you and I and our families can’t afford to wait.”
And, then he added, “I simply could not accept the fact that in the world of modern medicine, something as miniscule as a drop of blood (clot formation) could be allowed to destroy an entire family’s happiness.”
But, he never dreamed it would take him five years to explore this and reduce his research into easily understood reading, backed up by a 17-page bibliography. Chris was forced to cut back drastically his respected duties as Senior Director of Sales/Marketing for QualTel Communications, an international voice messaging company, in order to concentrate fully on finishing the book and fulfilling lecture commitments.
From the looks of things, the time was well spent. It’s not surprising that many people in the medical profession are endorsing Christian’s book in a day and age when medical leaders guard their reputations intensely and are cautious in even endorsing the work of their fellow medical colleagues.
 Christian is not a member of the medical profession and yet his revolutionary new book has received a tremendous amount of enthusiastic praise from nationally recognized leaders in cardiology. The foreword was written by Karol Watson M.D., Ph.D., co-director of Preventive Cardiology and director of Lipid and Hypertension Management, UCLA.
Gregory Guldner M.D., MS Director of Residency Loma Linda University commented: “What Christian Wilde suggests today, is destined to become standard medical practice in the next decade. No other reference so succinctly discusses the ways we can avoid the heart attack that is always lurking over our shoulder.”
The information in Chris’ book, written for the public in everyday language, is current, accurate, and, according to Michael Miller, Director of Preventive Cardiology, University of Maryland, “a must read for anyone who wants to help themselves or a loved one, avoid a heart attack or stroke.”
 Ronald Lawrence M.D.,Ph.D., Appointed Advisory to the Institutes of Health and the President’s Counsel, founder of the American Medical Athletic Association and author of “The Miracle of MSM,” observed: “After my more than 50 years in the medical profession, you have even opened my eyes”
I gotta tell you, Christian has opened my eyes a bit, too. But then, I’ve kinda learned to expect the impossible from the guy who once taught his dog, Heidi, to howl on cue and actually say “I love you” on the hit novelty song, “Underdog,” which he wrote and produced for Andy Griffith on Capitol Records.
The late bank teller-songwriter-singer Harry Nilsson would be glad to know, I’m sure, that Christian’s bank balance has remained stable, thanks partially to Heidi’s music royalty checks which still come in after all these years. But, he would probably rock ‘n’ roll over in his grave if he knew that “the Wildeman” had become a best-selling author of a book that tells the “straight skinny” about cardiovascular problems and how to prevent a major heart attack.
Oh, well, that’s show biz, baby.
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