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Barbara (Bobbie) Oberhansly delivers the weather forecast for Vietnam on Armed Forces Television in 1967.

Barbara (Bobbie) Oberhansly delivers the weather forecast for Vietnam on Armed Forces Television in 1967. (Bill Becker/Stars and Stripes)

SAIGON — Vietnam's most talked-about TV personality these days is a blue-eyed blonde named Bobbie, the Armed Forces Television weather girl currently weathering her debut in front of TV cameras.

Although her television experience and her knowledge of what make a rainy day rainy are both nearly nil, Barbara (Bobbie) Oberhansly was chosen from a host of Red Cross girls in Saigon to give the daily weather report over Armed Forces Television.

She appears nightly (except Sunday) at 7:55 p.m. to point out Stateside, Vietnam and R&R Center weather conditions.

"I went into this thing cold," Bobbie said. "The people down at AFRTS gave me a jam course on weather and are light-hearted about it all so that I won't be so nervous."

Problems? "There have been a few," she said. "The biggest thing was that they want you to smile all the time and I just couldn't smile at that camera."

A technician at the studio came to the rescue — he razzes Bobbie just out of camera range to keep her smiling through the broadcast.

Bobbie, 23, says people are always stopping her on the streets and asking, "How's the weather?"

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