Oct Iraq Tour: DAY ONE

DAY ONE: October 17, 2008

I’m writing from a small cell-block of a room on our first ARMY base, Camp Arifjan. Arifjan is close to the Saudi Arabian border, and is geographically huge – 6 miles by 4 and a half.  The country of Kuwait by contrast is relatively small – Kuwait City, the largest city, is no more than 50,000, and the whole country is less than the population of Boston.

The band and I left New York Kennedy airport yesterday.  I, in my now predictable routine of packing, had nearly two heart attacks trying to fit everything into my suitcase.  I’m gone for six weeks this tour.  After our first leg in the extreme desert with continual dust storms we are traveling through rainy and cold England Ireland and Scotland.  Dressing for the weather was a challenge!  Me being me though, I brought four pairs of stiletto heels, 2 ballet flats, flip flops and sneakers – more total shoes me all the rest of the band combined.  Hey, you can take the girl out of Manhattan, but…

The weeks leading up to this tour were busy to say the least.  This summer I was touring in Europe with my band from New York, and they agreed at the time to come do this Iraq/Kuwait Armed Forces Entertainment tour with me in October.  In August, I left for a vacation that I’d been planning for years – to Machu Picchu in Peru and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.  It was a two-week adventure I couldn’t pass up, and my manager Alex suggested I still go, despite the amount of preparation we had for the upcoming tour.  “Go,” he said.  “It will be the last vacation you have for five years.”

So I went, and found myself in the middle of the Galapagos Islands swimming with penguins and sea lions, literally in one of the last places on earth with no cell phone service.  Near the end of the trip, I came into a port town and turned my blackberry on.  There were messages for me from the entire band, all pulling out of the Iraq trip for “various reasons.”  I can only imagine. 

This left me with an interesting challenge:  I had one day back in New York before the visas were due to audition a whole new band, or to go solo.  I would have gone solo, but I firmly believed that these troops over here would get more of a morale boost from some hard-hitting rock and roll, rather than just a girl with an acoustic guitar.  I called every musician I knew in the New York scene, and asked them and all their buddies to meet for a one-day 12-hour audition.  All of the players were good, but I wasn’t feeling it.  A tour to Iraq is more than your typical run-of-the-mill van tour across America, and taking unknown guys out here felt like too much of a risk when we hadn’t even sat down for a pint at the pub yet.  Only half of it is how well they play; the other half is how much you’ll still like them after seeing them for 3 weeks nonstop.

At 10 pm, exhausted, jetlagged, and ready to call is quits, one final group of guys walked in.  Bryan Bisordi, Mark Stewart, and Eric Lindberg – young guys hip to the whole underground country music scene coming out of Brooklyn now – played so energetically that I instantly felt revived.  Within half an hour, I asked them: “Do you want to go to Iraq?”

There were a tremendous amount of preparations for the tour – the Army, as you may have guessed, is very detail-oriented.  At one rehearsal, all of us couldn’t lift our right arm for the typhoid vaccination we’d gotten that morning.  Ellis, my long-time friend and first band-mate, agreed to come along (giving up a tour with his band Fisher Spooner in Brazil) so he record the audio tracks for us in high definition, and release an EP following the experience, “Live From Iraq.”

In September I had a two-week radio tour of Ireland and some meetings in London.  I wasn’t even in New York longer than a week.  It was just long enough to clear out my apartment for another subletter, and get all the details sorted for the UK portion of our tour.

Some people were impressed with my plans to play in a war-zone; others were not.  The ones that disapproved mistook my actions as political.  But this is not about whether you are for the war or against the war.  It’s about taking a risk to bring music to people who need it most – kids that are far from home, seeing horrible inhuman events, battling boredom in-between, and having no way of expressing their emotions.  Some have been stop-lossed and are here on their fifth tour of duty.  Others are career military men who will always be here.  I’ve long known that music can heal – it gets you in the side-door to someone’s heart, where therapy and talk are suspect.  The bottom line is no matter what side you fall on politically, everyone can appreciate some good old-fashioned rock and roll.

So today my quest to bring rock and roll to all corners of the world involved a twelve-hour flight, ending over the most imposing desert I’ve ever witnessed.  From 20,000 feet I could see the oil refineries burning their huge effigies.  We waited in a long line at the Kuwaiti visa office with the other American Independent Contractors.   I called my mother to let her know I was safe, and just as I left my voicemail some guy came out singing Muslim prayers for the whole airport.  It was beautiful, but perhaps not exactly reassuring for a worried New England mumma.

Outside baggage claim, our drivers Contee and Sam met us with 3 Ford Escalades.  We drove 45 minutes to the Army base, with a private red SUV security detail trailing us the whole way.  Kuwait is about the size of New Jersey, so from where we are in Camp Arifjan near the Saudi border to where we are playing tomorrow, Camp Buehring, 20 minutes from the Iraq border, is about 3 hours drive.

Which brings me back to the small cinder-block room I’m in.  It’s absolutely freezing, and there’s no way to turn the Air Conditioning vent off.  Outside is hotter than you want to know.  Apparently I have it easy in a private room – the troops sleep in barracks in separate wings.  I got a brief view of the bunk beds at one point, and that little voice in me that was complaining – you know, the one that says, a bubble bath would be great and I’ll take a glass of chilled chardonnay with my smoked salmon – was instantly silenced.  I’m here to boost morale.  No divas welcome.

Breakfast is at 0600 hours tomorrow.  I should get some sleep.

Oct Iraq Tour: DAY TWO

DAY TWO: Saturday, October 18, 2008

Tonight I’m an insomniac.  It’s 5:30 AM after a full second day, and I’ve got to be ready to leave by 7.  I’m tossing and turning, playing that game with myself looking at the clock: “If I fall asleep now, I can still get three hours in… If I fall asleep now, I can still get an hour and a half.”  My mind just won’t shut off. I’m at an army base in Kuwait, headed for Iraq tomorrow.

Already, we’ve crammed a week of experience into the last 24 hours.  This morning I woke up early to hit the gym before we headed out – I still find that jumping on the treadmill is the best way to overcome jetlag.  Let me tell you though, you haven’t truly worked out until you’re pumping iron in the same room as some SERIOUS Army dudes.  On the wall was a quote from Mohammed Ali: “Fear comes from a lack of faith, and I believe in myself.”  Early morning inspiration for me before a big day.

I missed breakfast, opting to shower instead. In the female latrines, a woman in uniform shyly asked me if she could borrow my hairdryer.  Of course I said yes.  You could see the lust in her eyes for the small little amenities!

At 10 we met with Lt Colonel Jones for a debriefing on Islamic culture and our military presence here in Kuwait.  The Colonel was surprisingly candid.  He told us about how he’d just come back from seeing his family in Maryland, and how hard this war has been on military marriages with all the redeployments.  Most soldiers are here for at least a year of duty, and when home only stay for a maximum of nine months.  I can relate, with the touring rock and roll lifestyle.

Lt Colonel Jones had a vast knowledge of Middle Eastern culture, and struck me as far more tolerant than many of my friends back home.  There is no substitution for actually living within a culture to gain knowledge about the people.  The complications surrounding ethnic interactions here are immense and overwhelming: there are so many different races and nationalities, it becomes impossible to draw a line in the sand like people back home seem to want to do. While the Kuwaitis are friendly and helpful with Americans, Colonel Jones tells us we have virtually no contact with the Saudis, even though Saudi Arabia is less than 20 km from Camp Arifjan.

During Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Kuwaiti businessmen contributed half a billion dollars to the relief effort.  They’ve built all our military standing structures in Kuwait for us, provide all the food and water for our troops stationed in Kuwait, and give us gas to run our vehicles.  They even provide the American officers with housing in town. Gas is cheap here, 70 cents a gallon compared to our four dollars at home.  Kuwait has more cars than citizens.  There is virtually no agriculture.  Everything must be imported, with oil and dates being the only two main exports. Visas into Kuwait are hard to come by, and the restrictions on staying in the country are tight.  Long-standing visas are next to impossible.

Colonel Jones talks a bit about the media misinformation surrounding the war, CNN and Fox being the worst offenders.  Events here get twisted for politics back home.  Both sides seem guilty of the spin effect.  At first, there was nothing but bad news coming out of Iraq.  Now that the election is coming up, there seems to be an effort to highlight the improvements made here.  But Colonel Jones warns us that we are in a culture with a warlord mentality, making all improvement assessments completely unpredictable.  He mentions an Iraqi mayor he worked with closely, who greatly improved the quality of life in his town, bringing safety, jobs, sports and quality education to his town.  The story read like a feel-good novel until the end, where jealous warlords assassinated the mayor. Overnight all the improvements vanished and the town fell back to being an unstable war-zone immediately, as it remains today. All told though, it is clear that Iraq is stabilizing now that many of the sheiks have tired of Al Qaeda and are working with the Coalition Forces.

The base where we are playing tonight, Camp Buehring in Udairi, Kuwait, is the major pass-through for troops on their way to Iraq.  Camp Buehring is a two hour drive from Camp Arifjan. The drive to Camp Buehring is eye-opening, from the southern end of Kuwait near Saudi Arabia to the Northern border near Iraq.  We travel by small convoy, in two huge Yukons with our own security SUV trailing us separately.  Our music gear goes by pickup truck.  There is clearly a tremendous amount of wealth in the Middle East, with new mansions being built left and right.  The architecture is sort of Florida meets Venice, with large four story homes painted in a palette of pinks, corals, and sand.

Generally at Camp Buehring, troops will stay for a week to get their bearings and acclimate before they go on to Iraq.  They train in the shooting range and get used to the desert conditions, which are fierce to say the least.  We are apparently here in the good season.  Today is only 110 degrees.  May through August it can reach up to 135 degrees, and down by Arifjan where you are close to the sea the humidity gets to 90%.  Walking outside with eyeglasses on, they would fog up immediately.  Up near Iraq, though, it’s desert and the humidity is far lower.  Brian, one of our security detail, tells me he trained on the range earlier this year when the thermostat read 147 degrees in the sun, 123 in the shade.  I can’t even imagine what boots, uniforms, and at least 60 pounds of equipment would feel like in those conditions.  It makes Manhattan in August seems like a breeze.

The show is outdoors on a nice large stage in the middle of the camp.  While our soundman Ellis, and Coaxial, the Kuwaiti-based equipment hire company, get us ready for soundcheck, I walk out into the base to meet as many troops as I can.  We’ve got a “meet and greet” scheduled for after the show, but I want to say hi to the troops milling around in the meantime.  Some of them are on their way back from Iraq, training their replacements.  Others are heading to Iraq for their first tour.  I meet some people on their third or fourth return. One soldier tells me he was a filmmaker from Vancouver who’d enlisted to pay off his student loans.  Trish, an Army photographer, asks me to give a shout-out on stage to her boys in the Arizona National Guard who are leaving for Iraq tomorrow.  I meet four UK soldiers who are still rotating on duty before the withdrawal, from Scotland, Wales, and Bath.  There are two soldiers from Nepal.  The Americans are from all over, both red and blue states.

At first a lovely and sassy 6’2″ bald black woman known to everyone as Mama V walks around with me.  She quickly figures out I’m right at home talking to strangers, even those carrying large guns.  She says, “You go girl,” and leaves me to do my thing.  I am suddenly very grateful for all of my touring experience, having spent countless hours in unfamiliar bars going up to the strangers before my show.  “Hey! I’m Nell, and I’ll be playing some rock and roll for y’all — you should stick around and check it out! It’ll be a good time!”  If I can win over some toothless man nursing his ninth whisky watching his local football team on the flatscreen TV behind me, I can win over these soldiers.

Besides the repeat deployment guys, I meet a lot of kids who are headed to Iraq for the first time, not knowing what to expect.  Some are visibly nervous, their eyes bright and wide with anticipation.  Others put on a macho act for me, assuring me it ain’t no big thing to head into a war zone.  All of them seem disarmed by my openness and flirty nature.  In the reserved, controlled environment of the Army not too many people walk around calling each other sweetheart or honey, whereas I can’t seem to stop myself.  If I am here to distract them and boost morale, it’s working. Troops crowd around for pre-show photos.  Some shyly say they sing or play guitar themselves.

The band and I have decided on some covers that will bring the troops a slice of home.  Lynyrd Skynyrd, Muddy Waters, Willie Nelson, even country classics like Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” will be big hits.  I’ve got to be creative on how to get the audience psyched up. Colonel Rainey (Scott) warned me ahead of time the soldiers need some major cajoling to get them to react like a normal crowd.  Soldiers are trained to be reserved and unemotional.  Getting them to loosen up and party is quite a task.  But I’m up for it!

After an hour or so of meeting the troops I suddenly realize I’ve left all of my lyric cheat sheets back at Camp Arifjan.  Alex my manager leaves to find a computer where he can download the sheet music for me, narrowly averting disaster.  We come up with a quick set list and finish up soundcheck.  Alex leaves to get us takeaway food from the DFAC (the cafeteria), and the band and I do some last minute rehearsing.  I’m suddenly nervous: we’ve only had three rehearsals together, and this is our first show.  Will it be a train wreck?

Out on the stage, we start playing through the strange monitor system and unfamiliar PA.  Immediately it feels like we’re facing into a dust storm.  My hair begins to rebel.

During the set, I ask if anyone is from Kentucky, and when one guy whoops and hollers I yell at him to get up on stage with me to sing “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”  The troops love seeing their buddy up there behind the mic with me, and everyone starts cheering for the guy.  His name is Eric.  He’s got intense blue eyes.

The band and I stumble a few times.   The troops are won over and happy anyway.  Whatever tightness the band and I lack is made up for in effort and spirit.  We’re here to entertain with a little piece of home, right before they set off for the badlands of Iraq.  It works.

Muddy Waters’ “Got My Mojo Working” is a crowd pleaser, with it’s call and response that is easy for the crowd to shout back.  By the halfway point of the set, soldiers are yelling out marriage proposals to me.  We sweatily go over our 90 minutes of alloted time, because the crowd keeps calling for more.  My voice starts to tire a bit, the desert air and dust blowing on us for nearly two hours.

Finally we close with my song “Second Time Around.”  A red-headed boy named Brad jumps up to do a ho-down dance in front of the stage.  It’s too good to stop the song right then, so I invite him up with me and we extend the song so he can jump around with a big smile on his face.  I tell the troops I’ve pressed up free CDs to give away and sign, since I wanted to thank them all for their hard work over here.  I direct them to the Oasis Lounge, where I will be signing CDs and meeting them each one by one.

I unplug my guitar, and run back stage to drink several bottles of water to clear my throat of all the dust.  By the time I’m walking to the Oasis Lounge, there is a long line of soldiers waiting to meet me.  “Wow, boys,” I shout.  “Don’t worry!  We’ll get to each and every one of you!”  They file in patiently and the band and I spend nearly two more hours meeting and taking photographs with each of them.

One boy is a distant cousin of Johnny Cash’s.  Someone else tells me he volunteered for a fourth deployment because he was laid-off from his job in Oklahoma.  There is a female Rambo armed to the gills. You can tell the guys honestly respect her and talk up her artillery skills.  I imagine it would be tough to be a woman in the military: there are signs in the female latrines about how to report sexual harassment.  Still, there are quite a few women I meet in uniform.  It seems things really are changing.

After the show on our way back to Camp Airfjan, we have to turn around because our bass player forgot his passport.  We pass a 30 truck convoy of semis traveling to Iraq with supplies.  It’s surreal to be in a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere.

Finally back at the base, I check my email.  There’s a scathing and incredibly nasty message from a “pacifist” on my fan mailing list.  She rails against me for supporting murderers by being here.  (First of all, I’ve never heard of a pacifist that writes hate emails.  Secondly, I’m hardly pro-war myself.  I’m here purely to bring music to people that need it.)  I’m so shaken by the email I can’t stop thinking about it.  By the time I’m in bed it’s 4 am, and I crawl under the covers in my freezing, over-air conditioned room.  Sleep alludes me.  I toss and turn.

Now it is 5 am.  We leave for Iraq in 2 hours.

Oct Iraq Tour: DAY THREE

Oct Iraq Tour: DAY FOUR

DAY FOUR: Monday, October 20, 2008

Lucky us!  We are getting a private tour of those F16′s we heard buzzing overhead last night.

An Air Force pilot shows us some of the crazy systems the F16 is equipped with, including an infrared “eye in the sky” which allows them to track a person walking on the ground from 15,000 feet in the air.  Pilots wear helmets that have 360 degree situational awareness, with Minority Report-style displays showing them pertinent details at all times. There is no air combat here in Iraq.  The Air Force purely help the ground troops work out locations.

It’s time to fly to Baghdad.  Back at the airport hanger, we’ve got another hurry up and wait situation.  Our flight is delayed, then moved up, then delayed again.  In the meantime we sample one of the MRE’s given to soldiers: Meal Ready to Eat.  It’s a plastic bag packed with 3,000 calories, where you add water to the many options including “chicken and pasta” or “vegetarian rice,” causing a chemical reaction that heats up your food.  I suppose a hot meal out in the lonely desert is comforting, but it’s pretty gross and I opt out of my bag.  We’ve been warned to wash our hands at every opportunity to avoid the “Baghdad Bubbles,” a term for the gastrointestinal disfunction many Westerners encounter.  Apparently MRE’s are the perfect cure.  It’s not a selling point for me.

We fly to Baghdad in another C130 plane.  This time I ride steerage in the back with the boys, and I’m immediately drenched with sweat under my body armor. Between the dust storms and heat, cleanliness is now becoming a relative term.

We land, and are driven to the Joint Visitors Bureau to stow our gear before tonight’s show at Camp Victory.  Colonel Scott looks at us with a glint in his eye, and asks us if we’d like a private tour of Saddam Hussein’s palace.  Hello!

We pass a series of man-made lakes on the way to the palace, and a giant bat house to help contain the population of mosquitoes.  At the palace gates we show our passports and military orders to the Ugandan guards. Almost all of the gate security guards on American bases in Iraq are from Uganda.  In one month of working here they make more than they would in a year back home.  The attractiveness of the job insures they are serious about checking every person that passes through, not letting anyone slip through the cracks.

In the moat surrounding the palace are hundreds of giant carp and “Saddam” bass, swarming fish the size of a human two-year-old child, hungrily eyeing us as we pass by.  Dozens of armored SUV’s are parked nearby, each car door weighing up to 500 pounds.  The palace looks impressive from the outside, but once we get inside we realize how shoddily built it actually is.  Cheap and Tacky — best way to describe it.  Saddam wanted his palace built in a hurry as a show of strength, and he executed his first three architects it was finally completed. Tiles are falling off the “stone” facade.  Every tenth or so tile is inscribed with Saddam’s initials, because he wanted to metaphorically show, “You can kill me, but you can’t take me out of Iraq unless you take every block down.”

None of the interior marble is real but is instead two-inch thick applique hung on a framework of hollow walls.  The crystal chandeliers are actually plastic beads, and look incredibly gaudy.   We walk into the room where media photos were taken in the lead-up to the war of Saddam and his moustached henchmen meeting at long conference tables. It is equally tacky.  The tables are painted in swirling baby blues and fake gold, looking more like a grandmother’s bedside table than an executive desk.  None of the palace stairs are evenly built, and you have to carefully watch your step to avoid tripping.  Saddam was apparently a germophobe, and built a room filled with 40 sinks to insist on regular hand washing.  One of the few redeemable aspects of the palace are the ceilings, which are hand-painted colorful plaster made to look like Moroccan tiles, “commissioned” from Moroccan slave labor (the whole, “you can leave as soon as you finish painting” trick).

Around the palace, high-ranking officials from the multi-national corps buzz about.  The palace is now used as the headquarters for the 4-star general commander of the coalition.  It’s where General Petraeus based himself when he came to implement his new counter-insurgency strategy.

The view from the terraces is the best thing about the palace.  American
officers sit around quietly smoking cigarettes and cigars.  Many of the windows of the buildings surrounding the palace around the lake are piled high with sandbags, blocking out all light to protect from mortar attacks.  Across the way is the Australian coalition headquarters, throwing a pool party.  In contrast, the pool on the American side is empty with dust, covered in signs that read “Caution! Empty Pool.”

To our left is the reconstruction headquarters, responsible for rebuilding the schools, hospitals, power and water treatment plants that insurgents had targeted.  Far off, we see the “Perfume Palace,” which was the old whore house of Baghdad (mostly filled with kidnapped 13 year old virgins).

On the terrace overlooking the lake, Scott presents each of us with a gold coin for excellence.  We watch the sun set over Baghdad.  The light is a surreal orange color from the dust storms blowing in, and visibility is dropping rapidly.

Back at the Joint Visitors Bureau, I shower and change.  Our show tonight is at an outdoor stage at Camp Victory in Baghdad. After sound check bomb sniffing dogs make the rounds over the stage.

By downbeat time, the band and I are ready: after staying up late to
talk about arrangements, song endings and breaks, we feel more confident about our set list.  It ends up being our first great show together.  We finally settle into a rhythmic pocket.  In the back a circle of Ugandans dance enthusiastically.  Upfront, soldiers yell out friendly and
flirtatious cheers of encouragement.

The sound feels great on stage.  Ellis is boosting the band’s dynamic, riding the volume gains on the mixing board.  He’s recording the performance, and the potential to remember this night forever is not lost on me as I sing out to the troops standing in the side shadows.

It’s moving to see people slowly get more and more animated, and Bryan our drummer and Mark our bassist push them along.   Eric takes off on a couple of ripping guitar solos.  Predictably all the guys in the audience go nuts.  It’s awesome.  Even the subtler songs get across, like “Helen’s Requiem,” about a women caught in Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  It’s not a perfect show, but I’m starting to trust the band more, and they are feeling me out the way I interact with the crowd.

Mitch, one of our Armed Forces Entertainment contacts, joins us for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone.”   Mitch is a huge black Native American who walks with a limp because of his pro-football days (he used to play for San Diego).  He had pulled out his Native American flute earlier in the day while we were driving to Saddam’s palace, and I invited him to join us onstage tonight.  “Tuesday’s Gone” was one of his favorite songs.

After the show, we hold our meet-and-greet in the green room tent behind the stage.  Jason, the sweet boy from Pensacola Florida, surprises me by showing up again.  He sends regards from Ron who unfortunately couldn’t make it because he’s on shift.   I meet a very cool Japanese soldier who asks me to sign his gun holster, and I tell him my seventeen year old brother speaks fluent Japanese.  A sweet young Army reporter and I chat about his favorite Bright Eyes album.  An Air Force band we met earlier outside the palace also drop by to say hello.

Finally, grabbing more cookies than I should have, I say goodbye to the last few people so we can make our helicopter flight on time.  We travel to the Forward Operating Bases (or FOB’s) only at night in large Chinook helicopters which can easily carry our heavy stage equipment.  Our next show is at a smaller FOB named Kalsu.

The flight leaves at 3 am.  At the airport hanger, I take off my makeup and pry out my dust-ridden contact lenses.  We suit up in our body armor and helmets, and fall in line with about 20 other soldiers.  On both sides and in the back, Air Force guys perch themselves in open windows mounted with machine guns.  They scan the ground the entire flight for
any incoming hostile fire.  I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’m flying over a war zone.

We land in Kalsu at 3:45 am, and it’s at least 4 in the morning before our luggage is unstrapped from the pallet.  In the dark I get lost in the maze of T-Walls on the way to the ladies bathroom trailer.  All of us have our own rooms, though, and the guys in the band are thrilled. It’s the little things.

Oct Iraq Tour: DAY FIVE

DAY FIVE: Tuesday October 21, 2008

In the morning, lost again in a maze of concrete T-walls on my way to the female showers, I ask for directions from a group of soldiers standing around smoking cigarettes.  “You’re the singer!” they say. “We’ve seen your posters up around camp!”  On the way back they stop me for group photos despite my protestations of wet hair and makeup-free face.  As payment, I make them promise to bring out all their buddies tonight.

I’ve got two shows scheduled today: a solo performance at Camp Echo in the afternoon, and a band show at Kalsu tonight.  My plan going into this tour was to take music to the farthest reaches I could get to.  That meant that while I’d do the full band show at night in a Forward Operating Base, in the daytime I’d take helicopter rides with only a small amount of cargo space to outlaying patrol bases.  Preferred method of transport to these smaller patrol bases: the Blackhawk.  A very cool bird indeed.

There is a strict dress code for helicopters — long sleeves, long pants, covered shoes.  Before we left New York my manager Alex insisted I buy some loose-fitting windbreaker pants with an elastic waistband.  He knows me well – I didn’t own a single pair of pants other than tight cotton yoga pants, which are not exactly what you want to be wearing in a desert sandstorm.  And since a skirt was out of the question – my Marilyn Monroe moment might interfere with standard operating procedure – I opted for the men’s section of my local sports store.  Equipped with suitable attire, I’m ready for my first Blackhawk ride.

We fly for Camp Echo at 10 am.  The flight is a blast – I used to skydive, and jumped out of a helicopter once.  I probably won’t ever skydive again – life is risky enough as it is – but it’s nice to be high in the sky with the wind blowing on my face.

Below, agricultural plots and dusty houses with sandy palm trees intersperse with modest muddy brown rivers, straight as irrigation planning.  A few cows walk slowly about the levees.  The vegetation is green underneath, but covered in a thick layer of burnt umber-colored dust that weighs heavily on the palm trees, lawns, and rusted cars.  We land on the small patrol base, Camp Echo, in a whirl of helicopter wind.

Because we were delayed from weather, our arrival at Camp Echo’s cafeteria where I’m set up to play is poorly timed.  Soldiers are already finishing their lunches and heading back to their shifts.  Despite my best efforts to be brave and play to the back of the room, it isn’t a fun show for me.  I worry while I’m playing that they are walking out because they don’t like me.  It’s never fun to play head games onstage.

After the show, I sign CDs for the remaining kitchen staff and a few enthusiastic soldiers.  I’m pretty tired and bummed out, deflated.

Graciously, the commanding Colonel brings us to the Tactical Operations Center of Camp Echo.  Here, I find a tent full of flat screen computers and projected maps.  They point out the progress the Army has made in outlaying territories.  Several of the soldiers who walked out during my cafeteria performance come up to meet me, and I sign CDs for them.  I’m glad to be able to meet them personally – as busy as they clearly are they take the time to thank me for my tour here.

On our Blackhawk ride back to Kalsu, the helicopter pilot asks me if I want a “real” ride.  Before the band can even gulp, I say “YEAH I want a real ride!”  The pilot swoops us up and down, back and forth.  Roller coasters now dim in comparison.  We level out as soon as we approach Iraqi civilian areas – there’s no need to worry anyone below with our erratic approach.  The land below, although war ravaged, strikes me as more familiar than I would have thought.  Iraq has more green lawns and muddy rivers than Kuwait.  In some ways, I could be flying over anywhere, maybe if the panhandle of America had palm trees.  My preconceptions about the geographic identity of a “war zone” are quieted.  Again, though, I can’t see what’s really happening down there from my helicopter.  It’s moving by too fast.

Back at the main Forward Operating Base Kalsu, we set up for our outdoor show with the band.  The show itself is a blast.  The band is finally together, headed in the same direction musically.  It’s a wonderful and boisterous crowd, clapping along and dancing when told to.  We start a cheering shout-off between the right side and left side of the audience.  One guy screams out, “I want to have your baby!” and I politely decline, as life on the road leaves no time for out-of-wedlock action now.  The dust picks up.  A circle of Ugandan guards dance in the back.

We play over 90 minutes, unable to deny the crowd’s enthusiasm.  My gold sequined Tina Turner dress is caked in desert dirt by the end.

After the show, the meet-and-greet line moves slowly, as the soldiers chat easily about their lives in Iraq versus back home.  We meet some musically-minded guys  – Rattle, who sings us a gorgeous acapella gospel song, and Craig, an aspiring country singer from the South who confides his dream to us: Being on American Idol.  They ask me for advice in how to follow their dreams of music.  I suggest getting out night after night and simply DOING it.  No time in life will ever be perfect; no amount of preparation will ever keep you worry-free.  Touring and playing with other musicians is still the best way to earn your experience.  Don’t wait for American Idol, I tell Craig.  Go out and start now anyway.

After the show, the band and I sign the wall in the trailer – a little message for the next touring act that passes through.  The gear is loaded onto pallets, and we wait at the airport hanger for our next Chinook helicopter ride.  Tonight we are going to Mahmudiyah, about a 45 minute journey.  The woman at the airport hanger yells at us accusatorily. “This is not your mother’s house! Pick up after yourself!  Turn around when the helicopter lands! I’m trying to keep you safe, not put something over on you!”  Geez.

Finally aboard the large cargo space of the Chinook again, we settle into the canvas seats.  Our first Chinook ride (was that only last night!?) was a crowded flight, full of troops being transported to Kalsu.  Tonight on our way to Mahmudiyah, we are alone in the cavernous interior.  The helicopter crew throw each other Gatorades out of the cooler.  The pilots start the twin propellers, and the whole interior vibrates with a heavy effort.  The noise is astounding even with ear plugs.  Our gear loads in the back of the copter with us.  The crew stare out of their helmets through the open windows with their machines guns at attention.

We land at Camp Mahmudiyah at nearly five in the morning, tired, confused and disoriented.  A young officer shows me to my private cabin and I stumble into bed.

DAY SIX

I’ve certainly experienced sonic interference in obtaining a good night’s sleep in the past.  After all, I am a professional musician in the rock and roll trade.  But until my entire trailer shook with the booms of outgoing artillery – until the bed moved out from the wall in a feat of frequency physics – I had not experienced this level of alarm clock.

As I find out in the morning, I’ve had the best of situations of anyone in our group.  Even though Mahmudiyah (pronounced Mamma-dia), the Forward Operating Base we’ve landed at, is at present about 1,000 beds short for its soldiers, the officers watching over us manage to find me a separate trailer.  The cute soldier escorting me last night even graciously offered to bring me breakfast in bed, since the DFAC closes at 8 am.  I demurely declined of course.

In contrast, the guys –three band members, Ellis our soundman, my manager Alex, and Colonel Scott – are led to a trailer which doubles as a dog kennel, evident by a persistent perfume of urine.  Kept at ludicrously freezing temperatures, it is furnished only with six cots.   No sheets, no pillows, no blankets.  While they look at each other waiting for someone to say, “now let me take you to your REAL rooms where you’ll be staying,” I tuck into a duvet and count the inches the bed moves with each boom.

Tired, worn out, and dusty, we compare sleeping notes in the morning.  They win, and I shut my mouth.

A brewing sandstorm and a Blackhawk with no cargo room foil our afternoon plans.  Today’s patrol base day-hop is cancelled.  I’m bummed for the troops I won’t get to meet, and I sign a stack of CDs for the pilots to deliver to them in lieu of me.

As consolation for the changed plans, we are asked: Would we like a tour of the artillery tanks that kept us sonic company last night?  Yes please!  We crawl around the inside of the tank, then watch a soldier push various buttons to make the tank move about.  After, we all jump up on the top for a photo session.  It’s my one and only Cher moment in life, as the band point out to me.

We walk around the base a bit during the afternoon, getting the rest of the tour.  There’s a small “bar” with pool tables and cigarettes for sale.  It could be happy hour in some small bar in Eastern Texas, except the mood is especially dour.  I talk briefly with a man who’s getting a divorce, now on his fifth deployment.

After soundcheck, we head over to the DFAC for some dinner.  As usual, I feel like a zoo creature walking into the cafeteria all dolled-up in a skirt and stilettos.  It’s enough that I’m navigating my way in the dark through thick gravel and uneven paths outside, but under the strong florescent cafeteria lights I truly stick out.  There’s only one way to make this work: I walk up to each table of soldiers and introduce myself, inviting them to come down for a rock show.  “We’ll be in the airplane hanger,” I smile.  “You’ll hear us!”

There’s one exceptionally gorgeous 6’8” man, who I immediately introduce myself to.  There are perks to this business afterall.  The band teases me because I’m clearly smitten, but I behave.  My dad jokingly said before the tour he expected me to return with 25 marriage proposals.  “What are you doing tonight?” Mr. Gorgeous asks.  Ah, I’ve got to be flown out by helicopter after a rock show in an airport hanger.  (Excuses, excuses.)

Again, a great crowd, and many of them are going home in less than two weeks so they’re especially boisterous.  We play for two hours, throwing in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone” for the guys sitting up front from Alabama.  Up in the balcony of the hanger, a line of guys breaks apart for one to jump down to sing “Blue Moon of Kentucky” with me onstage.  His name is Buck Allen.  Perfect.

The meet-and-greet line is long again. Colonel Scott nervously looks at his watch as our Chinook flight time approaches.  It’s nearly two by the time the pallot is packed up and we’re ready to leave.  I reluctantly say goodbye to Mr. Gorgeous and we’re on our way.

The Chinook ride feels short, and we land in a muddy, mosquito-ridden camp called Falcon.  My running shoes are instantly ruined.  Mosquitos bite me through my baggy windbreaker pants.   I toss and turn with bad dreams as the sand kicks up outside.

DAY SEVEN

DAY SEVEN: Thursday, October 23, 2008

Highs winds. Heavy sand. Low visibility. Weather foils our plans for a day-hop to a patrol base again. I hate to admit I’m relieved, but the time I spend napping is incredibly rejuvenating. Bleary is an understatement for my state of mind at breakfast today. CNN blared in the TVs above us with news of the Wall Street financial crisis and Obama/McCain election coverage. I’ve contractually agreed with the Army not to discuss politics over here, and I find I don’t want to mention it anyway – somehow it seems like dirty laundry being aired. The mood in the cafeteria is somber and quiet, except for the blaring televisions.

After my much-needed nap, we trudge through the mud of Camp Falcon to arrive at soundcheck. A mile outside the camp walls, a huge mosque blares the call to prayer out of massive speakers. The echo through the walls is gorgeous and eery.

The stage is set outdoors in a basketball court. No lights or power are on as we walk up. Ellis quietly tells me he’s had no power yet, and the generator has yet to arrive. It’s a soundman’s nightmare, poor thing. Eventually, as they always do, things start working again.

Another run through the cafeteria, using the zoo creature dolled-up effect to my promotional advantage to advertise tonight’s show, and we’re ready to go.

Overhead, helicopters buzz nearly in time to the music. A young kid from named Casey screams “Man, my wife is gonna KILL ME!” as he bounces around on stage doing the worm and making everyone laugh. In the middle of the basketball courts a group of Ugandan guards dance around in a circle again – I’m starting to think this is the best kind of endorsement possible.

The dust storm has actually picked up in intensity during the evening. After the show we sit in full blast of the wind at a table set up under one of the basketball hoops. After two more hours of shouting against the howl, my contact lenses expire in a stiff and shriveled mess.

We load up in SUV’s back to our trailers to pack up our suitcases. It’s back to Baghdad tonight. We’ve got time to fill before our 2 am-scheduled Chinook ride.

Mildly hungry after our show, we stop at the DFAC for a midnight meal. I’m trying my best to stay nutritionally on track while on the road. There’s no time for working out the way I normally do at home, so I’ve got to be extra careful. Sadly, I’m far from perfect at this late hour. I try my best to walk away from the guys as they load up on grits and scrambled eggs, steak and biscuits, and chocolate ice cream. A few fried jalepeano poppers mysteriously land on my plate next to the salad options. Sigh.

After our Styrofoam picnic outside the airport hanger, we sit around slapping mosquitos. The flight is delayed each hour, until finally at 4 am we load up in our armored suits and get back on the Chinook, bound for Baghdad.

It’s a short drive to the Joint Visitor’s Bureau from the airport, but it’s nearly 5:30 by the time I’m actually in my bunk bed.

DAY EIGHT

I wake up in the Joint Visitor’s Bureau in Baghdad to a banging at the door. “Oh good, you’re awake. Fifteen minutes until we leave.”

Curlers still in my hair, I jump in the van for the drive to the helicopter pad for today’s day-hop. We sit in the van for about an hour as the weather conditions worsen and visibility drops. The pilots keep pushing back our departure. Finally, Colonel Scott makes the call and we turn around back to the Joint Visitor’s Bureau. Our final patrol base, cancelled.

We get a generous tour of the rockstar of Army vehicles: the MRAP, standing for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected. While older Humvees were vulnerable to Improvised Explosive Devices, no soldier has been lost from an explosion in an MRAP. It is an incredibly expensive, impressive vehicle. I sit in the driver’s seat and feel the shake of the powerful engine.

Tonight we play in a chapel at Cropper Detention Center, where Saddam was held before his trial. We play for the guards and legal workers. Behind the curled wire and high fences, prisoners in orange jumpsuits are hidden from view.

I think of Johnny Cash’s “Live From Fulsom Prison.” My manager Alex warns me to watch my sailor mouth onstage, and I’m horrified because he’s got the dirtiest trash-talking New York mouth I’ve ever witnessed. If he says I’m getting bad with my swearing, I better keep an eye out. I am playing a chapel tonight, afterall.

During the set, I suddenly feel inspired by the chapel’s acoustics to do a solo song, an old Delta blues by legend Robert Johnson called “Hellhound on my Trail.” I used to play it all the time, and tonight at Cropper it rings out truer than ever.

We keep the double doors to the outside open, so people mill in as the show continues. It’s a hard-working, 12-hour shift crowd of serious soldiers, interpreters, interrogators and legal folk. Many of them are from the New Jersey National Guard. They slowly warm up, and our meet and greet is enthusiastic and warm after the show. Still, the indoor feel of a chapel is night and day in comparison to our outdoor shows. It’s nowhere near as raucous. After the show, I slip into flip flops so I don’t have to stand in heels anymore. Navigating the gravel on the way to the DFAC was enough to do my poor feet in earlier.

We stay chatting late with a thoughtful entertainment lawyer who moved here from Los Angeles to help the Army out with its complicated prosecution messes. Introducing due process into Iraqi culture has been challenging, he tells us. His eyes mist up when he talks about his wife back home, who he clearly misses. Both of us are cheered by our candid chat.

Back at the Joint Visitor’s Bureau, we sit out on the dark terrace smoking cigars. It’s our last night in Iraq, and even though Colonel Scott has gotten no sleep in the last two days he stays up with us, laughing and taking photos. Saddam’s Palace glows across the lake. Just outside the base walls, a gunfight continues for a substantial amount of time. American M16’s answer AK47’s. Gunfire sounds less resonant in real life than in movies, where it is amplified to sound like reverberated thunder. In reality the sonic bursts are short and quick. It’s surreal, a fitting ending to a chance of a lifetime adventure.

DAY NINE

Our last day. It’s an early 7 AM call to the airport this morning. We are flying out of Iraq, back to Kuwait by C130.

I sign the rest of the CDs I brought as giveaways so Scott can distribute them to the soldiers we didn’t get to meet. It’s quite sad saying goodbye to Scott: we’ve all grown so attached to him, blown away by his intellect and good humor, literally trusting him with our lives. He is the reason I came here at all: he made a convincing case when I met him back in March in Austin Texas at the music conference South by Southwest. Scott invites me to come back for another tour in the New Year. We agree to work out the details. It’s not goodbye forever.

Our C130 plane is delayed, apparently struck by lightning mid-flight. We are diverted to another plane. I’m happy: the same Air Force crew of cute guys that flew me over earlier this week — Dave, Andrew, Ed and Keith – are flying us back. “You know you don’t have to ride in cargo,” they laugh, and hand me a set of cockpit headphones.

We wait around until a huge convoy of armored SUVs drives up on the tarmac. A four star general and his entourage board our plane, bound for their next stop, Afganistan. A female Colonel sits up front in the cockpit with me and the pilots. We’re warned ahead of time to watch our salty talk in front of a commanding officer. She turns out to be very inspiring and cool, and tells me about the recent promotion of the Army’s first female four star general. It appears things really are changing.

We grip our seats for a turbulent ride back to Kuwait, altering our route as the weather storms change. Dave and Andrew are brilliant, keeping our C130 workhorse as steady as possible in the sky.

We land at the Kuwait border, turn in our body armor and wait for our suitcases to be unloaded.

We’re back where we started: Arifjan, the first Army base we stayed at in our tour. Back then, I thought of my room as a frigid prison cell or depressing college dorm. Now it seems positively luxurious after a week of mud, trailers and outgoing artillery booms. There’s laundry, a PX with weekly magazines, and a 24-hour gym. I buy some new running shoes at the PX, and throw my mud ridden Nikes in the trash. It’s cathartic to hear the thunk of them in the waist bin.

At dinner, we marvel at the food options – several choices of everything, served in well-lit tiled rooms with wood paneling. No buzzing fluorescent lights or creeping dust.

Nevertheless, the band and I still stick out at our back table. I introduce myself to the officers sitting next to us who can clearly hear our conversation. It turns out one of them is a commanding 3-star general. He leaves and returns to present us all with gold coins of excellence.

Tomorrow morning, we will fly to London. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself, certain that the culture shock will be tremendous. I am scheduled to appear on BBC Breakfast TV two days from now. It’s touch and go whether I will get all the dust out of my hair before then.

The boys and I do loads of laundry and marvel at our adventure. It’s been the opportunity of a lifetime. We all come from liberal East Coast or West Coast upbringings, and are surrounded by anti-war circles at home in New York City. I myself am not for the war, nor have I ever been. But all of us agree that politics are irrelevant to our experience this past week. We came to support the troops and boost morale. Nothing more.

I’ve been especially impressed with the many intelligent, thoughtful and candid people I’ve met here. The military are far more informed and sensitive to Islamic culture than people hear of back home. Certainly there are people from all spectrums of political thought within the military, but there seems to be more agreement here with my friends at home than I might have initially thought.

I sent in my absentee ballot before I left. I hope that America can restore our tarnished international reputation with diplomacy and intellect. I hope that we become again a demonstration of democracy that actually inspires. I am a lucky girl to have seen what I’ve seen.

The surprising thing is I wasn’t nearly as scared as I thought I’d be. Frankly it would have been scarier hiding in my bedroom back home, wondering about what could have been. A life of music is what I’ve always wanted.

When I’m back home in New York, that poster of Muhammed Ali will still hang on the gym wall of Camp Arifjan:

“Fear comes from a lack of Faith. I believe in myself.”