USO trip day one
We spent the first day of the trip in Washington DC, getting ready to go. We started in a large auditorium/gymnasium on a base that I can't remember the name of. Sorry.
The bands all rehearsed and did sound checks. We were all fitted with body armor and helmets. Dino and I couldn't stop giggling at how crazy the whole thing is. We also started realizing how incredibly boring this might be and I got scared Dino might bail out.
The tour manager and promoter, who's name is Jeff, gave us a briefing where he told us some of what we might expect. We then were taken to the Ritz Carlton in Chrystal City Maryland to spend the night. Dino and I went to the bar and drank. Dino also went and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels and a bottle of Listerine. The reason for this is that there is absolutely no alchohol allowed anywhere in Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan because those are Muslim countries and it's illegal there. He had been told by a friend that a listerine bottle was a traditional place to hide booze.
While in the bar, I ran into Lewis Black, who was going on a tour of all the same countries with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I went to my room and tried to sleep. I think I got about one hour.
We were woken up at about 5am to head to Andrew's airforce base, where we would be Wheels Up at 6:00am, on our way to Kuwait, by way of Germany. That's as far as we were told.
While at Andrews, we met all the people that we'd be spending the next ten strange days with. SOme of them are...
Sergeant major of the Army Kenneth Preston.
This guy is a badass and immediately impressive. He's also very soft-spoken, kind and a good listener. He greeted me very warmly at Andrews and thanked me for coming. I don't think he'd ever seen my act.
I told him that I had visted some wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center the last Christmas and he and I shared some observations about how military people recover from wounds and support each other. I like this guy a lot. He really took care of us and he clearly gives a big old shit about the regular enlisted people in his Army.
The Sergeant Major has a small and competent staff of Sergeants. Here are some of them...
Sergeant White
This guy was very serious but you could totally make him laugh and he was also very honest. He told me a lot of interesting things about Army life over the next days.
Sergeant Ratner
This guy was so basically Army. Very southern accent. Very much a stay out of trouble cog in the machine. But he had a very dry sense of humor and made me laugh a lot. Dino and I would say something to him like "Ratner, are you a fucking giant retarded idiot?" and he would, with an amazingly straight and sincere face, say "Yes sir." More on him later.
This dude
I never learned this guys name but he was really cool. he was clearly a dangerous guy with combat experience and we all felt safe around him.
Mark Wills
Mark is a country Western Singer. I know zero about that kind of music so I had not heard of him or any of the other country acts on the show.
Craig Morgan
Another Country Western guy. He has a big hit called "Redneck Yachtclub". He was also a Army Ranger at one time.
The rest
Alright I'm already getting sleepy so I'm going to use this group picture, taken by Fred Greaves who was the trip photographer, to rattle off the rest. The lady on the end is Leanne Tweeden. She was the emcee for all the shows. She has been on a lot of USO tours. She used to be on the Best DAmn Sports SHow.
The guy with the dark hair is Kenny Thomas who was the other country act and who was also in the Army. Kenny was involved in the whole "Blackhawk Down" incident. The three ladies in the front are three of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders. Their names are Lily Robbins (blonde) Adrianne (dark straight hair) and Kaileigh (frizzy dark hair and also not entirely white) the fat red headed douche in the back is me.
Okay so that's everybody. We all hung around a lounge at Andrews Airforce base. It was stil before Dawn. The Sergeant Major arrived with all his people behind him. He introduced himself and thanked us for coming on the tour. He asked us all to go around the room and say our names and what our roles were on the tour. Everybody went around and did this. I realized during this process that Dino was standing in such a way that he would introduce himself before me. I already didn't know what the hell he would say when it was his turn. Every single person in the room had a legitimate role on the tour. People brought supporting musicians or roadies or whatever. I was the only person who brought someone who was just a friend, just for the fuck of it. Moreover, Dino and I were the only people in the room who weren't ever in the Army and weren't country western singers and we were DEFINITELY the only non-christians and DEFINITELY (wish there was an even cappier caps to use there) the only non-republicans in the room.
As the introductions made their way towards us, I pulled Dino gently to the other side of me, so that at least he would have my introduction as context.
The cheerleaders went right before me. "My name is Lilly Robins and I'm a member of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders." they said one by one. Then me. "my name is Louis CK and I"m a member of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders." Ha ha. It was a small laugh. Well it was a pretty small joke. I went on "I'm a standup comedian." Then Dino. "Hi. I'm Dino. I'm Louie's friend. But I'm open to being anybody else's friend here too!" Huge laugh. Including the Sergeant Major, who instantly liked him.
When that was over, we went out on the flightline and boarded our plane. A C17. An enormous Grey monster of a plane with four engines larger than a house on each wing. We climbed metal stairs and went inside.
I have never, in my life, been inside of some shit like that...
The C17 is not built for comfort or passengers. It's just an empty plane with a hard metal interior with no ceiling or walls. Just wires hanging all over the place and metal beams and shit. All of our gear was locked down to the floor on pallets in the back. They'd rolled in a pallate of seats for us and a pallate with two bathrooms on it. Along the sides of the fuselage were simple seats facing in and some cots for sleeping towards the back.
Soon after boarding, the Sergeant Major approached Dino and I and asked us if we'd like to sit in the cockpit for the takeoff. We said yes.
We climbed a metal ladder to get up there. This was a view back down into the passenger area from the back of the cockpit...
The first thing that impressed me about military air travel is how casual it all is. there's no seatbelt, item under the seat in front of you, turn off your cell phone, nothing. You get in the plane and fly. People throw their shit down wherever, you grab a box lunch off the pile. If you want water there's a cooler strapped to a wall somewhere.
I had never been inside a cockpit of anything, let a lone a giant Airforce transport plane. We were greeted by the pilots, Neil and Chris.
Two young guys who look like Buck Rogers or Chuck Yaeger, but talk like scientists. As soon as we arrived behind them they said "Hey, Lucky Louie!" They were all fans. They sat us in seats directly behind us with big 5 point harness seat belts and gave us headphones so we could talk and listen in on their flight communication.
A member of the flight crew immediately handed me a handful of my DVDS. Lucky Louie, Shameless, my Half hour, and asked me to sign them all for their buddy who is an aspiring comedian and a fan.
I signed them gladly. In a few minutes we were taxiing down the runway. This was not like other times I"ve taxiied down a runway. As Dino and I watched and listened, we gathered that Neil had flown this plane many times and was training Chris on it. They went over everything in very fast pilot speech, peppered by regular person speech. "You gotta keep the trim down when you're climbing at a hig vector or you'll be really fucked."
It was still dark, but in a few bizarre seconds, this Grey monster just tilted up and pushed us right into the daylight above the clouds....
After the takeoff we watched for a while longer as the pilots learned from each other. At one point, Chris flipped a switch and Neil said "Don't do that." Chris did it again and Neil said "Dude. Seriously. Stop doing that or we're fucked." We laughed about that a lot later.
**PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE**
By the way, on the subject of photography, for comparison's sake, here is a picture of the pilots taken with the digital camera...
And here is a picture taken seconds later withe film camera...
I'm just sayin...
Okay it's past 1am. My kids are waking me up in about 5 hours so I have to stop. That's pretty much it for day one anyway. Dino went downstairs to sleep after a while and I stayed because i LOVE airplanes. I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid but I can barely be a comedian let alone do somethign like that.
I stayed for a few hours and peppered the guys with questions. So interesting. Neil said his goal was to someday fly Airforce One.
These pilots are extremely intelligent guys with just guts up the ass.
After a while I went downstairs to sleep. The pallate seats were far too small to sleep in. So I made a bed out of my jacket and tried to sleep on the cold metal floor. In about ten minutes the whole under side of my body was FREEZING. I was about to give up and go back upstairs when an enormous bald soldier got out of one of the wall cotts. He looked at me and said "I had it for three hours. YOu take it now." and gestured to the cot. I climbed in and went to sleep in the giant crater his body had made.
The next morning, after 8 hours in the air, during which I slept for maybe 50 minutes in that cot, we woke up in Germany, where we ate at our first DEFAC or Dining facility. Basic carb-heavy army food. Actually very good and comforting. Then we got back into the C17 and flew another 8 hours to Kuwait. It was too late for Dino to back out now.
That's it. Gotta go. More tomorrow.
LCK
Posted by Louie in on March 10, 2009 | Comments [ 5 ]
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Great blog, Louis! I just got back from Camp Patriot (Kuwait) in December, after a deployment with the Army Nat'l Guard. I just wanted to say Thank You for visiting the troops over there. It was so awesome to get celebrity visits while I was there. I was lucky enough to catch Robert Kelly while he was over.
Keep up the great work. I love your act, and I love your visits to O&A.
Hope to catch you in Cleveland next month.
Heya Kenneth, you're cute.
So do you prefer the film camera, is that what you're trying to say?
I think I'd prefer to fly THAT way. That looks mega cool.
I love the little bios on each person-- I never thought I'd get an insight on how these USO shows actually are directed, or moved.
I know it's not 'all' the info, but I'm glad to remain ignorant about secret details. :)
I saw your video at one of the USO shows--looks like you rocked them. :D
I forgot to mention that the picture you took with your film camera DOES look a LOT better than the digital camera.
I'm glad that one of the companies in the digital cam wars called off the Megapixel war and was talking more about features/capabilities.
Keep on defending the darkroom Louis! Love you man!