“Cherish” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on September
17, 1966 and remained at the top for three weeks. 

Martha Raye was a comic actress and standards singer who performed in
movies, and later on television. She was honored in 1969 with an Academy
Award as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer
efforts and services entertaining the troops during World War II, the Korean
War, and the Vietnam War. Raye’s life as a singer and comedy performer
began very early in her childhood. She is the only woman buried in the
SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft. Bragg. She was an honorary Colonel
in the Marines and an honorary Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army.

Martha Raye with a group of soldiers at LZ Center, 40 miles southwest of DaNang
in 1968