Troop Weblog

Country Stars visit Iraq

I never really cared much for country music before I went to West Point. The one radio station that played country in Blairstown never played any good country and I thought it was all bad. But living with Joe Stanyer, Army Football #99, my Yearling year at West Point opened my eyes to good country music. Moving to Texas after graduation sealed the deal. Now a lot of my favorite music is country.

Given my new respect for country music I joined in the excitement and anticipation that was all over the Camp last week. We were all excited because Toby Keith and Ted Nugent were doing a U.S.O. tour in Iraq and Camp Victory was a scheduled stop on Saturday morning. Toby Keith had just swept up all the top honors at the Country Music Awards.

They arrived in the morning and met our Commanding General, Lieutenant General Metz. I got this picture in the hallway:

Margaret had already gotten her own photo with them when they were waiting outside the CG’s office:

I didn’t get my picture with either of them, but I did get to shake Ted Nugent’s hand when we took them into the Joint Operations Center. After sitting in on part of a Battle Update Brief they went out in front of the palace and played a set, about six songs each, to a huge crowd of fans. I watched from right behind the stage so I don’t have any good pictures of them performing, but it was awesome to be that close.

Regardless of what you think of their music, I think they deserve a great deal of respect and thanks for doing these types of tours. The soldiers love it and it means a lot to them, especially when they now that the performers are already famous and don’t need to do this.