Cameron, Dianne

Dianne Cameron was born in 1943, and she grew up in southern California.  She enjoyed the typical childhood of the time, going to Catholic school and watching TV and going to bowling alleys – all in the shadow of the Cold War.  She took up the drums when she was young and by her late teens she was playing in rock n roll bands.  One of those bands – the Pretty Kittens – did well, playing on the vaunted Sunset Strip, and she remembers her manager asking the group if they’d be interested in an overseas tour – playing in Vietnam!  The group decided to go; they were patriotic and felt that were needed, so they embarked on a tour of several months, playing bases in Thailand and Vietnam.  They played 100+ shows, all the while dealing with the smoke and humidity and the normal difficulties of life on the road, not to mention being shot at while in a Chinook!  Still, it made a tremendous difference to the soldiers, boosting their morale and getting their minds off the difficult day-to-day realities.  Dianne Cameron zoomed with Mr. Masters’ History 10 class in May 2022, along with Vietnam veteran Robert Mizwa, whose story can be found in the Military Veterans section of the Crestwood OHP – we thank the Veterans’ Breakfast Club for facilitating these interviews!