When the offer came from the USO to bring his MTV hit "Yo Mamma" to the troops, he jumped at the chance his first tour is set for next month. Had his career not taken off on "That 70's Show," Valderrama says he'd likely be in Iraq now. In fact, he wanted to join the military himself, as a pilot. He says he sees himself in the soldiers: "They're practically our age, you know? They're, you know, 23, 24, ya know? I'm 26 years old, and a lot of my friends are 25, 24, you know, up till like 19." That's especially true for younger entertainers such as Wilder Valderrama, most recently in the film "Fast Food Nation." I'll never forget it I feel like they appreciated more than any other crowd has ever appreciated me." I just remember the laughs just hitting me, bam! Bam! Bam!. I think it was the best performance I ever had. But they wouldn't exactly tell us where we were. "The best show I ever had was after flying all night, landing in Ala Sad, Iraq, performing for a bunch of Marines. Oh, I support the troops.' How?" Ross observed. He turned the experience into a documentary called "Patriot Act," and found a bit of himself. He admits he never thought too much about the troops, let alone worry about ways to entertain them until, one night in a comedy club, he agreed to accompany Drew Carey on a USO tour of Iraq. Makenzi Swicegood says the time away from their NFL team is worth it, to root for the bigger team overseas: "You just kind of learn a little bit more about yourself, and what you thought going in there, and how much those people affect your life."Ĭomedian Jeffrey Ross jokes, "You've heard of Bob Hope? I'm no Hope!" They're just now wrapping up a tour in Baghdad, and one in Korea. One of them, Megan Fox, says she's gotten used to the reaction: "You kind of walk into a mess hall and all of a sudden, people go, 'Oh, my gosh, there are girls, there's girls, girls! Girls are here? There's girls here?" These days, it's usually the performers doing the dancing, and no one has taken to the USO stage more recently than the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, who have done some 60 tours over the years.
More young men met more young women at USO dances than almost any other place at the time more than a few marriages were born there, too. He called it the United Service Organizations - the USO - and charged it with giving the troops a taste of home, and keeping them "occupied." He took groups from the Salvation Army to the YMCA and put them under one umbrella. Roosevelt founded the USO in 1941, to help the nation cope with the thousands of young soldiers pouring into small town train stations. Ned Powell, who now heads the USO, says, "As long as we have men and women in service, as long as they're a long ways from home - and I don't see that changing anytime soon - there's gonna be a need for us to look 'em square in the eye, on a regular basis, and say, 'Hey, thank you.' That's all we do."Īnd, adds Cowan, it's what they've been doing for 65 years. "I deliberately don't do political stuff," Franken notes. The emcee is frequently Wayne Newton, working the stage with jokesters such as Al Franken, who opposes the Iraq war, but says he does it to support the troops. Instead of the dulcet tones of the Andrews Sisters, now it's performers such as Kid Rock who rattle the rafters.
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