<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Courtesy of the Spokesman-Review at:<div><br></div><div>———————————————</div><div><br></div><div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Former airman Cronauer, who inspired ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ film, has died</span></div><div><br></div><div>NORFOLK, Va. – Adrian Cronauer, the man whose military radio antics inspired a character played by Robin Williams in the film “Good Morning, Vietnam,” has died. He was 79.</div><div><br></div><div>Mary Muse, the wife of his stepson Michael Muse, said Thursday that Cronauer died Wednesday from an age-related illness. He had lived in Troutville, Virginia, and died at a local nursing home, she said.</div><div><br></div><div>During his service as a U.S. Air Force sergeant in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, Cronauer opened his Armed Forces Radio show with the phrase, “Goooooood morning, Vietnam!”</div><div><br></div><div>Williams made the refrain famous in the 1987 film, loosely based on Cronauer’s time in Saigon.</div><div><br></div><div>“Yes, I did try to make it sound more like a stateside station,” Cronauer told the AP in 1989. “Yes, I did have problems with news censorship. Yes, I was in a restaurant shortly before the Viet Cong hit it. And yes, I did start each program by yelling, ‘Good Morning, Vietnam!’” The rest is what he delicately called “good script crafting.”</div><div><br></div><div>“In many ways, I’m a very conservative guy,” he said. “A lifelong, card-carrying Republican can’t be that much of an anti-establishment type.”</div><div><br></div><div>Cronauer was from Pittsburgh, the son of a steelworker and a schoolteacher. After the military, he worked in radio, television and advertising.</div><div><br></div><div>Muse, the wife of Cronauer’s stepson, said the movie “helped open dialogue and discussion that had long been avoided.”</div><div><br></div><div>“He loved the servicemen and servicewomen all over the world and always made time to personally engage with them,” she said.</div><div><br></div><div>She added that he was “a loving and devoted husband to his late wife Jeane (as well as a) father, grandfather and great-grandfather.”</div><div><br></div><div>Cronauer attended the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. He worked in communications law and later handling prisoner-of-war issues for the Pentagon.</div><div><br></div><div>“I always was a bit of an iconoclast, as Robin (Williams) was in the film,” Cronauer told the AP in 1999. “But I was not anti-military, or anti-establishment. I was anti-stupidity. And you certainly do run into a lot of stupidity in the military.”</div></div><div><br></div><div>——————-</div><div><br></div><div>AFVN: Good Morning Vietnam (Adrian Cronauer)</div><div><a href="https://youtu.be/9N4GwVyhOgU">https://youtu.be/9N4GwVyhOgU</a></div><div><br></div><div>———————————————</div><div><br></div><div>Rest well, Mr.Cronauer.<br><br><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></body></html>