Rob Brackenridge and Richard
Villa
At 5pm
on Tuesday, March 18th I was sitting in the LAX Airport
waiting to board a United Airlines flight to Frankfurt, Germany, when my
phone rang. It was Mike Burton, the tour coordinator, and he informed me
that the other comedian, Richard Villa, had forgotten his passport and
was trying to zoom home and get it and come back within an hour. During
rush hour in Los Angeles. Yeah right, THAT’S gonna happen. This was
the exact way my last Afghanistan tour started, only that time the other
comedian made it with five minutes to spare. Richard was not so lucky. As I settled into my seat getting ready for the eleven-hour flight my
phone rang again. “How much time can you do?” Mike asked. Apparently
there was a chance I would have to do this tour on my own. I’ve filled
in for other comics before so I knew I had the time, so I wasn’t too
worried – I can always pull out what I call my “Wedding Set” – something
old, something new, something borrowed, something blue… a lot of the
blue stuff. It just wouldn’t be as fun.
As it turned out, Richard
caught a flight the next day and after sampling the wienerschnitzle and
beer, we caught a c-something from Ramstein Airbase nonstop to Bagram
Airbase in Afghanistan which took seven hours. Two soldiers we came to
know as AppleJacks and Reggie met us at 1am. They were both short in
stature but made up for it in personality. They were constantly
cutting each other down for being short. AppleJacks proudly boasted being one
quarter inch taller. After sleeping four hours in the B hut (a plywood
shack where all the entertainers stay) we were loaded onto a huge
heavily armored bus called a “Rhino”. Everyone had full armor on and
was armed to the teeth. We were given the “comics armor” which
consisted of an old vest and a helmet with no chinstrap. “Just go John
Wayne style,” they told me.
The 45 min. ride seemed a lot longer as we
bounced along the semi-paved 2-lane road from Bagram to Kabul. We passed
colorful Jingle trucks and flocks of goats and camels, catching glimpses
of the weathered faces of the native people, some waving, some angry,
and all the while the same thought kept racing through my mind: “What
the hell am I doing here?”. At one point we hit a big bump and a
soldier’s sidearm flew out of its holster and landed on the floor
pointing at me. I’m not gonna lie… a little pee came out. We made it
to Camp Eggers in Kabul, and were met by Capt. Mack and shown to our
quarters. We hit the jackpot and got a VIP room with TV and internet,
very close to the bathroom.
We flipped a coin and Richard was the
headliner for the first show, I would headline the next, and so on. The
show was at the clam shell and it was packed. After the show the
General gave us a commemorative coin and we chatted with some of the
soldiers. One guy told us about going out on missions through the city
and dealing with suicide bombers. Just recently he had a literal run-in
with one who was determined to blow up his convoy. The soldier
remembered making eye contact with the crazed bomber as he passed, and
he turned his vehicle into him pushing him over and causing him to crash
through the windshield before he could detonate the bomb. A buddy of
the bomber who was video taping the incident, pushed the mangled body
off the hood and drove the car bomb away. We played Texas Hold’em with
these guys until 2am.
The next
day we had an armed escort across the street to the Camp Q . We had to
put on our vests and helmets (Sgt. Dooley got a chin strap for me) and
walked the 100 or so yards through a concrete corridor passing through
two checkpoints. It was Easter and coincidently the birthday of both
Richard and me. The camp went all out with egg tossing, and Easter egg
hunts and baskets of chocolate rabbits, which so aptly remind us of the
suffering and death of our savior. The Afghan Nationals who worked at
the Camp just stared and shook their heads as the tossed eggs exploded.
Maybe their mothers told them not to play with their food. During the
day we were taken on a tour in a normal SUV of some of the
reconstruction projects that were going on in Kabul. It was danger
level 4 out of 7 and Trina, our guide and work overseer, did the driving
with our bodyguard in the front passenger seat. People drive with
reckless abandon in the city, with no dividing lines or traffic signs it
was survival of the gutsiest. An occasional lone traffic cop stood in
some intersections in a futile effort at order. It made LA rush hour
look civilized. Trina said her upbringing in Brooklyn helped a lot, and
it must have been because she barreled and jostled with the best of
‘em. She showed us the schools and other public buildings going up, and
it was nice to see first hand some of the good that we are doing in the
country. We did a show that night at the gym to a very receptive and
appreciative crowd before being escorted back across the street.
The next day we were met by four Navy personnel in a two Humvee convoys to take us to camp Blackhorse, a twenty-minute drive from
Eggers. We armored up and halfway there they asked us if we’d like to
drive. Of course we said yes, and they took us to an isolated gravel
road and we got in and took off. The Hummers were heavy lumbering
vehicles that absorbed the deepest potholes with ease. We went to a
clearing that they use for target practice and we shot a few clips at
some insurgent water bottles with their rifles and visited some friendly
national guys who lived in shacks at the top of the hill. When we got
to Camp Blackhorse we quickly realized why we took our time getting
there. There was nothing to do. It was one of those isolated camps
where more than one soldier would get so bored that they “were almost
gonna read a book!”.
We did a show at the mess hall and that was the
best crowd of the tour. It is nice to be appreciated. The next day we
used the same convoy to go to camp Kia, about 20 min. drive. Kia was an
international camp and the rules were not as strict as they are in the
American camps. We ate at a Thai restaurant and did the show in a very
informal outdoor setting with no sound system, or a Capella, as Richard
called it. The crowd really enjoyed the show and afterward we went to a
plywood bar with a pool table and actual beer and wine. The only
service people not allowed to imbibe were the American and the Dutch. We had a few beers and some stogies and had a few laughs with the Turks
and Swedish soldiers until the mandatory 10pm closing.
The next day was Wednesday March, 26th marking one week
since we left LA. We had an 8pm show at Camp Phoenix, which was about 10
Kilometers away, but a very dangerous 10 K. They decided it would be safest
to fly from base to base, so we went to the airfield and found ourselves
looking at a ’93 Russian MI-17 helicopter. This was the same copter that
some the soldiers had been making fun of the night before. Apparently a few
of these airships were left behind when the Russians were ousted and the
Afghans had kept them running somehow. A lot of them were held together with
rope and duct tape and they shook so violently during flight that on a
mission you would lose a few pounds of unwanted fat. The one we got on was
owned and maintained by Americans who have slightly higher standards and was
perfectly safe. Really, Mom, it was. The briefing took 15 minutes and we
were instructed not to photograph the crew because, "they didn’t exist". The
flight itself took all of 5 minutes and was fun and uneventful.
We were
met by Sgt. McLoud who showed us to our rooms (yes separate rooms for
the first time) and when we saw the bare mattress and no pillows we
asked if we could get some linens. “I’ll see what I can do” he said. The next day after prodding we got a sheet and a thin blanket and a
sleeping bag. The show was not advertised at all and it was in a huge
meeting room. It was sparsely attended and our voices bounced off the
cavernous walls and off into space. The few who came seemed to enjoy it
but it was hard to tell.
We spent
two nights at camp Phoenix, and were told to be ready to fly out at 4am
Friday morning. It came and went and at 7am an excited Sgt. McLoud
banged on our doors telling us to hustle up and catch a convoy or we
will be stuck there another day. Apparently we missed our flight to Bagram and a convoy was just about to leave. No time for breakfast, we
just got in and took off. This two-Hummer convoy had gunners in the
turrets. They joked with me that I would be riding up in the turret. That’s the last time I call shotgun. It was an even bumpier route from
Kabul to Bagram than we had taken with the rhino a week earlier. There
were lots of huge holes where IEDs had exploded and we were told that
there was a suicide bomber in a blue Toyota with license plate starting
with 17 that we should be on the lookout for. One of the guys in my humvee told me that a sniper had hit the gunner on his vehicle on the
same road the week before. At one point our lead vehicle smashed the
rearview mirror off an unfortunate Jingle Truck that had strayed too
close to the center as we passed it. My first thought was “shouldn’t we
stop and exchange insurance info?” There’s no stopping for any reason
once the convoy starts. And those boys drive fast.
We got to Bagram
and found out we had no show that night. We were supposed to be in
Kandahar. Someone dropped the ball and those guys in Kandahar would not
get a show this tour. The next day we flew a fixed wing plane to Camp Jahalabad. This was a 45 min flight and Jbad was extremely hot. Our
tent had AC so it was nice and Sgt. J took us to the Bazaar and showed
us how to haggle for 15 minutes and get 2 bucks off a piece of crap we
didn’t want anyway. The show was in the mess hall and Sgt. J did a
great job with sound and lights and we had another packed and fun show. The next day we were loaded into a huge C-something plane and flew back
to Bagram landing at 6pm. We did our 7th and final show at
8pm Sunday, March 30th, at the Clamshell theatre for a
good-sized crowd who were very appreciative. Now we had to figure out
how to get home.
