[The Mayor]

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood" :-)

Yes it is!

I thought Mr. Rogers was a war hero too. Am I right?

[SAMWolf]

There was a rumor he was a sniper in Vietnam but it's probably false. I can't find anything in any of his biographies that mention any Military service.

[snippy_about_it]

SNOPES
Rumor:

Fred Rogers served as a sniper or as a Navy Seal during the Vietnam War, with a large number of confirmed kills to his credit.

This same rumor has often been applied to boyish country singer-songwriter John Denver (among others), and it's just as false when told of Fred Rogers. Not only did Fred Rogers never serve in the military, there are no gaps in his career when he could conceivably have served in the military — he went straight into college after high school, he moved directly into TV work after graduating college, and his breaks from television work were devoted to attending the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963) and the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Child Development. Moreover, Fred Rogers was born in 1928 and was therefore too old to have enlisted in the armed services by the time of America's military involvement in Vietnam.