For the longest time, Vanessa Lachey didn’t think she had the right credentials to work with the USO.

The actress, model and TV personality, best known for her starring role in the military police procedural “NCIS: Hawai’i,” had thought about doing some overseas visits with troops with the USO in previous years, she said during a recent joint interview announcing her new role as USO Global Ambassador alongside actor Wilmer Valderrama. But Lachey felt like she didn’t have the star power Valderrama had from his work on the late ‘90s and early 2000s sitcom “That ’70s Show.”

“The thing that I regret — and I’m now in my 40s, and I thought I needed something that they could be familiar with to go over to support,” Lachey said. “I thought, well I don’t have a show they all know about, and I don’t have a single that they all sing, and I don’t have a stand-up comedy show to give them that relief. And that’s wrong. They just want anybody. And that’s why the USO is so beautiful.”

Lachey is far from just “anybody,” though, especially to a military audience. Born at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, Lachey grew up as a military kid. Her father, Vincent Minnillo, served in the Air Force, and she attended eight different schools in nine years, she said.

“I remember — and it’s sitting right here right now in my throat — when my dad would go away, when I would see the duffel bag,” Lachey said. “And it’s not, ‘Oh, Dad’s going on a work trip.’ It’s, I know what he’s doing. I remember being 6, 7, 8, 9 years old, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 – my dad retired when I was 17 years old. When he would leave, every time the doorbell would ring, I didn’t want to answer it because my fear was that it was going to be a couple uniformed officers standing there. And I would not relax until he was home.”

As a Global Ambassador, Lachey will join Valderrama in helping “further the USO mission to strengthen the well-being of the people who serve and their families through its core programs,” a USO announcement said.

“Vanessa understands the significance of the USO mission and the importance of providing support to our service members and their families,” USO CEO and President J.D. Crouch II said in the announcement. “I look forward to working alongside her and seeing her connect with the military community in this new role.”

Lachey would not join the military herself — on a dare, she entered a beauty pageant at 18 and became Miss Teen USA in 1998. But she has always wanted to give back to the military community that raised her, the same way she saw others do as a kid. She recalled a USO tour with country singer Randy Travis that stopped at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey while her family was stationed there.

“I didn’t know Randy Travis until he came, and then I was the biggest Randy Travis fan watching him sing at the USO tour when I was 8 years old in Incirlik, Turkey,” she said. “Seeing this man from home who came out there unsolicited, came out there for us for nothing — he didn’t get paid to go, he came out of the goodness of his heart. I remember feeling so loved by this stranger and I remember feeling so connected with everybody at that base at that time, and that’s something I’ll never forget. So I definitely want to pay that forward.”

Lachey will join Valderrama, who has been on 12 USO tours since 2007 and became a Global Ambassador in 2021, for virtual visits and in-person tours throughout the year.

“Specifically with a summer tour and a Thanksgiving tour and a Christmas tour, those are things that take a long time to plan, and right now those are the conversations we’re having,” Valderrama said.

The actor, who stars on the original “NCIS,” helped encourage Lachey to get involved with the USO. Over the years with the USO he has visited troops in Djibouti, South Korea, Turkey, Norway, Poland, Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan.

On his first tour in 2007 to Germany, he recalled rankling some of the brass with a stage version of the MTV reality game show he hosted at the time, “Yo Momma,” in which contests would “battle” with “yo momma” jokes.

“For me, I was like, well how do I bring a stage version of ‘Yo Momma’ onstage?” Valderrama said. “To USO’s credit, they had very little understanding of what ‘Yo Momma’ was; they were just like, ‘Wilmer Valderrama’s going on a USO tour, yeah, whatever he wants to do, let’s go.’ So I brought the winner of the New York season and the winner of the L.A. season. … The generals thought, ‘Oh, a comedy show, great,’ and they sit right in the front — you’ve got like two-star, three-star generals in the Germany operation.

“The ‘yo momma’ jokes were tailored to the armed forces, and it was — I mean, people were standing on tables they were laughing so hard,” Valderrama continued. “And when I looked to the front, the two-star generals were not laughing so hard. But you know what, the truth is I wasn’t there for them, and they will tell you this. The purpose of this visit is to connect to the people.”

For Valderrama, that connection he was able to forge with enlisted service members got him “hooked,” he said.

Growing up with the military, Lachey already has that connection in many ways. But she needed a push from Valderrama to get over her insecurities.

“With Wilmer, he’s like, ‘No, Vanessa, you’ve lived that,’ ” Lachey said. “… He knows me to my core, and he knows what they need. It’s just bringing them together, making them feel seen, making them feel heard, making them laugh. And I’m honored that I get to sit beside him, with him, on this journey.”