sgtdub

23 December 2006, What a Show!

Al Franken and Leeann Tweeden did a fantastic job emceeing the show last night. Al, during one of his moments showed concern about traveling to Bagram Airfield by convoy. He stated to the crowd that if he was captured and video taped, we should look for messages from him. "If they video tape me and you see me and it looks like I'm crying, that's the signal for you to come rescue me. If they video tape me and it looks like I'm crying....and I've wet my pants, that's the signal for you to come rescue me...and bring an extra pair of pants." He continued in the Bob Hope fashion of attempting to get a kiss or more from co-emcee Leeann, and failed.

The show started off with the All-Army band and singing group knocking out the hit song "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas. Four very talented singers got the group ready for the rest of the evening.

Former Army Ranger Keni Thomas came on next with Shevy Smith playing keyboard and guitar for him. Keni has one album out right now, Flags Of Our Fathers, A Soldier's Story. Shevy has an amazing voice herself and it shouldn't be long before she starts to shine.

A hip hop group called Washington Project is a brother sister team who's father is a retired Air Force Sergeant. They have some real talent and every song was geared towards the troops, heck I even gave a shot at dancing

Next up was Mark Wills. The troops had been as far away from the stage as 35 feet, but with each new act, we got closer to the stage, partly because we were enjoying the show, partly because the stage had heat radiating off it from blowers and it was 35 degrees outside. Anyway, Mark put on a great show singing and interacting with the audience. With his announcement it was his last song, someone from the crowd booed him, Mark quickly turned and said, "Don't boo me, I'm not the Dixie Chicks." This got a round of applause from the troops.

Darryl Worley was the final act and really had the crowd worked up. First, he came out wearing a jacket over a seemingly red jersey style shirt. Please remember that Camp Phoenix is primarily made up of troops from the Oregon National Guard and the Oklahoma National Guard. Some time back in the college football season these two teams met on the field and Oregon came out on top, (we won't mention the obvious bad calls by refs, oh...I just did) Well, just before Darryl got started he mentioned he was awful hot and took off his jacket, revealing a Oklahoma Sooner's jersey. Now, in his defense (as he is from Tennessee and said he was already doomed for wearing the jersey from folks back home) we gave him the jersey and he said he would wear it since nobody else gave him a jersey to wear.

Guess that was about it.....oh, wait.....I forgot to mention getting up on stage with Al Franken, didn't I? Yeah, I didn't know what he had planned but he asked for a couple of soldiers to come up on stage.

Guess you need to check out tomorrow's post to find out what he had in store for me. Be safe and have a good day.