Cheryl Schwartz, She 5

She 5 Feature: Cheryl Schwartz

On Friday afternoon (May 21, 2010), a woman with short gray hair, glasses, and a Rosie the Riveter pin fastened to her Army-green jacket toured the grounds of LZ Lambeau. Unlike many of the women there, she is not a veteran, nor family of a veteran; she is a member of the band She 5.

Cheryl Schwartz – formerly Cheryl Young – came to perform with the all-female band to thank the Vietnam Veterans. Her last performance was in 1969 during the band’s last concert of its Vietnam tour.

In 1968, entertainment organizers searched the country for bands with girls to perform for the troops. They found She 5, an all-female rock-and-roll band from Fox Valley, Wisconsin. The group was comprised of five girls between the ages of 14 and 18: guitarist Darlene Ryba, keyboardist Cheryl Young, drummer Audrey Reffke, bass player Patsy Yingling, and lead singer and guitarist Pam Hurst.

After convincing their parents to let them tour the war zone, the girls boarded a plane in Appleton and made their way overseas. They landed in Saigon and began playing throughout Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, and Korea. They put on as many as three shows a day, seven days a week while on tour.

“Most of our tour was done in Vietnam,” Schwartz said. “We played down in the delta, on these little floating wood things in the swamp with our power coming from a gas generator. Wherever there was a need, we went.”

Schwartz said the group was in high demand due to the unpopularity of the war effort back home. “The troops were treated poorly. They really felt like nobody cared, and we heard that time and time again. It was just good to prove that somebody did [care].”

On Friday night – more than forty years later – you could feel a love and respect between the She 5 and hundreds of veterans attending the reunion concert. The band played its Vietnam tour set list and had the crowd on their feet, singing along. After the two-song encore finished, all five women were surrounded by fans, seeking autographs and interviews.

After four decades (children and grandchildren), the She 5 are still rock stars.

Written by Lauren Knoche.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 17:41 and is filed under Essays, Quotes, and Notes, L.Knoche and tagged with Lauren Knoche, LZ Lambeau, She 5, Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.