Spending Christmas in Afghanistan and Iraq Was a Life-Changing Gift

There’s a banner hanging in Terminal A of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It says “Welcome Veterans” and “America Thanks You For Your Service.” It was there six days before Christmas and it was there two days after the holiday. The message is the same, but it feels entirely different now.

That’s to be expected when one sees it through new eyes. Eyes that have seen, firsthand, even a fraction of what those words mean. Or should mean. That was the opportunity afforded to me as embedded media on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff USO Tour, a once-in-a-lifetime trip that was as challenging as it was inspirational.

Ten shows in five countries, plus an aircraft carrier. Fourteen flights totaling nearly 44 hours in the air, spanning over 23,000 miles. A breakneck pace that was light on sleep and bursting with action. One where bleary eyes and sleepwalking bodies became the norm. But one where the spirit of the mission never dampened, running on the fuel of gratitude and appreciation of those whose sacrifices far outpaced our own.

The tour aims to entertain and uplift service members stationed abroad. Actors Wilmer Valderrama and Milo Ventimiglia, three-time gold medalist Shaun White, CrossFit champion Mat Fraser, comedian Jessimae Peluso, country star Kellie Pickler, and disc jockey J. Dayz met for the first time at Joint Base Andrews before flying overseas. They put together a variety show on Air Force 2 that would be performed over and over, from picturesque Norway to adrift on international waters to some of the more sobering outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We visited Scandinavia on the the shortest day of the year where the sun’s path was more a tiny arc than a looping parabola. We visited Bahrain, a magnificent port of wealth serving as a Naval hub, and the USS John C. Stennis, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier bustling with 5,000 people and activity. We made three stops in Afghanistan (Bagram, Dahlke, and Kandahar) on Christmas Eve and three in Iraq (Baghdad, Taji, and Al Asad) on Christmas Day. We closed with a visit to Poland.

We flew on various cargo planes, helicopters, and traveled by bus. Every jaunt was a reminder that the sound of freedom is loud. And powerful. It requires ear plugs. Thousands of American soldiers, contractors, and foreign nationals piled into hangars, gazebos, and outdoor plazas to watch, and appreciate a moment or two far-flung from their reality.

There was a routine but it was hardly routine. J. Dayz began each show with a 15-minute set, setting the mood. Those seated would begin rocking in their chairs, slowly at first, then picking up speed as the tracks continued. There were occasional sing-a-longs, the intensity varying by stop. Valderrama served as the emcee, welcoming the crowds and introducing each performer, interjecting wisecracks and, if the audience was good, a moment of Fez. Peluso went first, with a blistering set where no person or topic was off-limits. White and Fraser spoke about particularly high and low moments in their careers before fielding questions. At one point, White let it be known he cut his trademark long hair out of fear of turning into Carrot Top. Ventimiglia did a scene from his show, with an audience member standing in for his wife. Pickler closed things with a four- or five-song set before a castwide rendition of White Christmas.

The following words won’t do the week justice. They won’t capture the raw emotion or reflect a significant spectrum of those impacted. To do that, one needs to see things for themselves. And that, more than anything, is the point. To bridge that divide and walk, ever so briefly, in a service member’s boots.

Sgt. Anthony Williams, of the 101st Airborne Division, works on Apache helicopters at Camp Dahlke, in the Logar providence in eastern Afghanistan.

“You never really know what you’re going to get until you’re here,” he said. “We came out in June, Christmas wasn’t even on my list. It was something I didn’t expect to be away from home for. I’ve got my wife and 1.5-year-old son at home. It’s tough, but we’re going to work through it.”

His words are still ringing in my ears. You never really know what you’re going to get until you’re here. I certainly didn’t. How could anyone who hasn’t served, who hasn’t seen the realities involved and sought out answers from those who have, do, and will in the future?

Williams, who was speaking after an afternoon show played against the crisp backdrop of mountains and a setting sun, said he was ecstatic the tour included a stop to his location. He was one of the scores who spoke about how welcome the visit was, in terms of breaking up the monotony of the day-to-day.

“It gave us morale back after a long, long eight months of unbearable heat and constant enemy threats, so to have this time to let our guard down and enjoy ourselves is really good.”

This was a common refrain. The ability to let relax and forget about the challenges and work for 45 minutes or an hour, or to share a meal with a new face, was spirit-buoying. Seeing the seriousness of the situation melt into bliss was a freeing 180-degree journey. The weight of duty can be heavy, and the act of unburdening cathartic.

“I want a picture with Jack,” a gun-toting soldier in Afghanistan told his friend. “I watch This Is Us and I’m not afraid to admit it.”

Ventimiglia, who was a late addition to the troupe after hearing of Valderrama’s plans at Mandy Moore’s recent wedding, was making his second such trip to visit those serving on the front lines.

“Who doesn’t fill up with a good feeling when someone’s smiling at you or asking for a moment to have a conversation,” he said. “It’s great. For me, it’s reinvigorating to come over here and then come back to the states and really speak loudly and proudly about the work that’s being done by our military.”

From the pebbly and monochromatic Kandahar to the Tataooine-like Al Asad in Iraq, the scenery changed. One thing remained constant. The overwhelming sense of mutual respect between those putting the show on and those taking it in.

“I didn’t understand what representing the USA at the Olympics was, I didn’t fully appreciate it,” White told me. “I didn’t realize you’re going for all of these people.”

White said he felt a deep connection when sailors told him they watched his PyeongChang glory on base. “Definitely one of the top experiences of my life.”

“As soon as I was asked, I agreed and didn’t really ask what was involved and, oh my god, I’m glad I said yes,” Fraser said.  CrossFit, which has military roots, is wildly popular on the bases and the crowds swarming him were plain evidence.

“It’s been the experience of a lifetime,” he said. “I’m looking up to what they do and they’re looking at me saying thanks for setting the table, we’re kind of in awe of each other. It’s just a very cool experience. I hope I get to do it again. I’m going to be bragging about this for a lifetime.”

The show is for those in uniform. It’s also for those putting it on. And those covering it. And those at home who will read about it. This is a closed circuit meant to conduct energy.

“I always say that the overt mission is to entertain the troops during the holidays but the covert mission is to get the entertainers to have a better understanding of the kinds of Americans who are out here defending their freedoms,” USO CEO and President J.D. Crouch II explained. “It helps to connect Americans back to their service members. Our mission statement in the USO is keeping service members connected to family, home, and country. That’s a two-way street. We want to put service members in the minds of people at home during this time of year. One of the challenges we’ve got is the same challenge the military has–that fewer than one percent [of Americans] serve. The military is held in very high regard but people don’t understand what these folks live with here.”

The military-civilian divide is real — and perhaps an inevitable line. It is built more out of ignorance than malice. People don’t know what they don’t know. They can read things but feeling them, and sorting through them, along the way embracing the complexity, is another story.

“This has given me perspective,” said Peluso. “Appreciation. The main thing is learning that my complaints are so minimal.”

A sharp-tongued shot of lithe energy, she was the comedian on this tour in part because of a recent tragedy. She lost her father to Alzheimer’s in late October. This whirlwind was heavy on emotion for all involved. It may have been even heavier on her.

“The main reason I’m here is because of his death,” she said. “Honestly, when he passed away — and even now because it’s so fresh — I just didn’t think twice about it. I honestly didn’t. I thought ‘these men and women miss their families. They don’t see their families for years. They don’t get the opportunity that I had with my father for every Christmas of my life.”

“It’s a boot camp in traveling,” she said. “It’s a boot camp in comedy. It’s a boot camp in emotion. It’s humbling. It is the most humbling experience of my life. It’s so different from doing shows back home because their energy is kinetic. It’s so visceral and you can tell that they need it in an animal way. Those laughs hold the tears and blood and stress and anguish they have experienced through their service here. I’ll be the military clown whenever they need me to.”

No act connected with the crowd on such a deep level as Peluso. She pulled no punches in a set heavy on audience participation — both willingly and involuntarily. In Poland, the biggest, strongest man in 20 miles was enlisted to serve as Patrick Swayze to Peluso’s Jennifer Grey in a remake of Dirty Dancing‘s pivotal moment.

“Good for him,” one of his superior officers told me. “He’s one of the shyest guys we have.”

Gen. Joseph Dunford’s fourth annual trek came during a busy time against a backdrop of uncertainty. On the morning of departure, President Donald Trump tweeted in support of his abrupt decision to withdraw troops from Syria. Speculation that a similar decision regarding Afghanistan would be coming soon lingered. An hour before wheels went up, CNN flashed a news alert that Defense Secretary James Mattis was resigning. His letter laid out strong idealogical differences with the president.

Unpredictability can be recognized across the political spectrum. It is fair to say that these past few years have been more unpredictable than usual for those in the military. A vast organization predicated on smooth, efficient communication appears — from the outside — to be prone to lapses in that department, or at least operating while receiving information from the top in a fashion differently than before.

Dunford, whose four-year term is coming to a close, shared a consistent message at each spot. One focused on duty and controlling the things within one’s control. In his words, their “mission yesterday is the same as your mission today and your mission today will be the same as your mission tomorrow.”

“What I tell them is don’t try to think too much about the future,” he said. “Just focus on the mission that you have right now. Focus on the young man and woman to your left and right and get done what needs to get done. When the time comes our leadership will tell us what they need from us and we’ll strap it on and get it done.”

The four-star general was the picture of calmness and leadership. At each and every destination, he met with his troops, offering a kind word, holiday greeting, or bit of wisdom. Dunford celebrated both his birthday and anniversary while on tour. It looked as though he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else, so comfortable was he with his men and women in uniform. No one gets to where he is without a certain level of magnetism and his came easy and earnest.

“I’m at the stage of life now where I believe my responsibility is to set the conditions for our men and women to be successful and provide them support where I can,” he said. “The opportunity to get to bring to them a bit of home during the holidays is incredibly rewarding to me.”

It’s hard for anyone to be away from their loved ones for any extended period of time. It’s hardest over the holidays. The goal of this mission, which has taken place over Christmas at the request of Dunford, instead of early December, is to bridge the gap, to bring a bit of home to Americans who can’t be there. There’s power and beauty in the simplicity. Having morale-boosting boots on the ground on the most special of days has paid dividends.

Sgt. Sharon Rau, deployed at Bagram, applied to be an officer before deploying, and was encouraged by her brief face time. “It makes you feel like your leadership cares about you. For me, seeing a four-star, that’s a unicorn so whenever they show up it makes me feel that they care about us, and our well-being. They have much more important things to worry about — being a four-star — so them taking the time out means a lot. Seeing his excitement was pretty cool because I’m just a ‘regular schmegular’ sergeant. Seeing him proud that I could follow in his footsteps is pretty cool.”

“I see him light up when he gets to spend some time with the troops and the soldiers and sailors and Marines,” Ventamiglia said. “I think those are the things that keep him going. The duty to those who serve under him, he’s basically serving them.”

Dunford said he experienced a USO show or USO hospitality almost every time he was deployed. He remembers one specific incident, shortly after his wedding, when he was injured and required surgery.

“I woke up on Christmas Eve in 1984 out and standing around my bed was a USO Tour that was in Okinawa, Japan. I think that’s one reason I feel so strongly about the impact the USO has had is because the memories of that, the memories of Lee Greenwood coming in 1986, the memories of being able to call home in the days before it was easy to do at a USO Center, those are all things that are very clear to me.”

It’s trite but true. Holidays are about family, and being with those who care about you, who will be with you through thick and thin. Family, like everything tends to be, is complicated. It can come in many forms. One of the most pervasive ideas soldiers wanted to talk about was the idea that they have a second family — all those who wear the uniform.

“You’re with them 24 hours a day,” Lance Corp. Cameron Brinks said in Norway. “I live with these men. We’re in tents together, we’re in fighting holes together. My problems are their problems, my heartaches are their heartaches. My joy is their joy. Through it all, we share it together.”

‘You develop a bond with these people because you’re all from the same town,” Staff Sgt. Wayne Myhre, who is deployed at Taji, in Iraq, said. “You know their wives, you know their kids, families. You really look out for them while you’re over here.”

Araceli Castillo, one of the few women at her location in Iraq, spoke about how the kindness of this surrogate group had improved her time.

“It’s been really nice, you get to meet people from all over the world,” she said. “This is like a second family. We all did a Secret Santa, which helps us get closer.”

Castillo’s advice for those who don’t face the challenges those serving their country abroad encounter?

“Don’t take all the little things for granted, because when you’re out here and have nothing, that’s what you miss the most. Even just going out for a drive or getting ice cream or being with your family. People tend to overlook that stuff because it’s so normal, but once it gets taken from you, you really see what you’re missing.”

Lt. Anthony DeJoy and Lindsey DeJoy brought their four kids to the show in Bahrain, which was G-rated instead of the typical PG-13.

“It’s nice to have a piece of home every so often,” she said. “I think when you’re away from family you find new family away from home. This is the hardest time of the year for us so it’s great to have the community come together and have things like this to do.”

Pickler, who was on her 12th trip, was, in many ways the matriarch of this makeshift family. Perhaps no other entertainer is so passionate with their words and fulsome with their actions. She has been on trips with the USO and trips on her own, traveling to locations both more remote and perilous.

This is her Christmas tradition, along with husband and lead guitarist Kyle Jacobs. This is their family too. One can feel it as she connects with crowd, or when Jacobs covered Lee Brice’s I Drive Your Truck, a song of sorrow, with hundreds of voices providing the refrain. Their gift is highlighting the gifts of others.

On the USS John C. Stennis, Pickler invited intelligence specialist Erika Smith up on stage. Smith, who has been in the Navy for over a year and at sea for two months, blew people away with a professional rendition. She told me, somewhat remarkably, that she was never in chorus or choir and that her public performance resumé consists of a few national anthems.

“I told my friend that we had to be right up front so we could see everything and just in case,” Smith said “I’m like, oh my God, I’m going to die. My heart is racing and I’m still shaking. I can’t wait to call my mom.”

In Bagram, Afghanistan, Pickler once again came bearing presents. After Pfc. Joshua Richardson plays guitar onstage, the band gives him a new one. Visually moved by the gift, he speaks of his own big dreams.

“I’m trying to make it to Nashville,” Richardson said.” I’ve been doing local competitions. I asked the tour manager if he could get the chance and found out earlier in the day I’d be playing. I’ve been singing since I was 18 months old. My mom told me the story one time of how she used to sing “You Are My Sunshine” to me and one day I just woke up and said, ‘no mom, I’m going to sing to you.'”

Richardson is still singing, and using it to find joy on the other side of the world. He’s not hiding his talents under a bushel.

“I really do miss my family, but I’m pushing through,” he said. “Everything they’ve done here for this tour has been amazing. I’m so thankful for the people putting this on because I feel home right now. I’m not worried about work or anything right now, I’m here to have a good time.”

This is not a commercial for the military or an intentional puff piece about the people who spent their holidays abroad. This is an honest accounting of what I saw, what was plainly obvious to anyone with eyes. It was powerful stuff that took every preconception and put it in the blender. It painted with big, wiry brushes in the places where no thoughts had been painted.

This trip was humbling for many reasons. One of them was that it provided countless and never-ending opportunities to feel stupid. Stupid for not realizing how much of a sacrifice our troops make. Stupid for drawing sweeping conclusions and views based on such minimal information. Stupid for underestimating those who serve. Stupid for having such a warped and perverse sense of perspective.

Here’s the truth. A vast majority of places we visited weren’t places you would want to spend Christmas. Or Halloween. Or June 12th. Or any day. It was hard for me to imagine spending a week there, let alone nine months or a year-plus. And these were relatively safe, the four-star hotels of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The civilian-military divide is not a subtle wall. Someone who is unfamiliar with life on the other side, and has no experience with it, can feel like a stranger. But one of the most inspiring things that became crystal clear, with time, was that those in uniform are just wearing a uniform. Underneath they are just like other Americans.

Every race and ideology is represented. We tend to think of the troops as this monolithic entity. In reality, they are as diverse — perhaps more diverse — as any grouping stateside. They shared views from all over the spectrum, but are bound together by a common goal.

So, now, the elephant in the room. How does one who isn’t sure our troops should be deployed to these locations support them with full hearts and full force? For those who have seen what these men and women are doing up close, like myself, it will be easy. For those not granted the opportunity, with some critical thinking.

“[In the Vietnam era] Bob Hope was criticized by many people in Hollywood for doing those shows,” Crouch said. “They weren’t able to separate the war from those who were called on to fight it. And that’s what I think this generation of Americans has done so well. Whatever you thought about Iraq or Afghanistan, they hold these young men and women in high regard.”

Another striking aspect that’s impossible to ignore is how young these men and women in uniform look. And they look that way because they are, in droves, incredibly young. The facility in Norway felt like a college dorm, like a Stoolie meetup would break out at any time between bottles of dip spit. On the aircraft carrier, the average age of the flight deck crew is 20. It’s 22 for the 5,000 or so living on it at any time. Fresh-faced soldiers invariably spoke of having two or three children at home, some of them giving ages that made one question the math. But what was lacking in pure quantity was more than made for in soberingly steady responsibility and poise.

While their peers in the United States sleep through morning classes or tap a gap year or any manner of real-life-delaying activities, these people are out there dealing with life-and-death situations. They’re operating equipment with million-dollar price tags. They’re in charge of, frankly, very important stuff.

Life is not a values competition, but there’s something undeniably admirable about the maturity on display. Much is asked and there’s precious little time to dawdle, or stagnate.

White recalled a time a dozen or so years ago he did a skateboarding exhibition with Tony Hawk in San Diego and saw this very thing.

“It tripped me out because everybody was around my age,” he said. “It was incredible to see these brave peers of mine headed off to war.”

It was a challenging, intensely rewarding week. The acrid air of Baghdad and aggressively picturesque, snow-capped mountains of Afghanistan won’t be forgotten. Nor will the myriad emotions felt both internally and adjacent.

Two things — beyond the obvious appreciation — will linger.

First, the value of firsthand experience. One can’t know what they don’t try to understand. Just a glimpse behind the curtain altered my life forever, in unexpected ways. One can never understand what others have been through, what’s shaped their worldview, without asking. And without being sincerely in search of the answer.

Finally, the interplay between the micro and macro.

In this country, we tend to take supporting the troops for granted. Hell, it is drilled into us to the point of exhaustion. But when you see one man or woman wearing the uniform, and appreciate their sacrifice, that support takes on a whole new meaning. It’s amazing how one becomes greater than many. Conversely, we tend to think that we’re all collectively lending that support. That may distract us from making the individual effort.

Preachy? Maybe.

But you might do the same if you’d had your entire worldview shaken violently and realigned to a more reasonable place. You might do the same if you had the privilege of seeing these brave people up close and personal. You’d definitely feel a bit better about this country.

[(DoD photos by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dominique A. Pineiro]