RRRRRAAAAAAAWWR!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! We were under attack. ICBMs were imploding the hotel walls. I was doomed... I was.... Jesus... Is that snoring? Someone had just woken me up with a deafening, staccato snore that sounded like a jungle beast trying to devour a baby whole. Who was it?

A better question might have been, who wasn't it? Everyone was snoring in that room. I felt like I was on a movie set with a bunch of shitty actors who were all told, "Okay, fellas, now really show me you're sleeping hard.. aaaaaaaaaaaaand ACTION!" I have never heard such interesting permutations of the snore, sleep apnea, sleep farting, sleep burping (yes, that too), blubbering, and lip smacking in my life. I kept looking around for Snuffy Smith or animatronic Pirates holding big brown jugs with "X's" on them. Jesus, is it just biomechanical sinus issues or was everyone here raped by an uncle?

Rustled (and kept) awake by the end result of poor American dietary habits, I decided to do a recap of the night before:

Although the crowd was a hell of a lot more excited to see Paul Wall and Jamie Kennedy, they really responded well to my part -- the self-described "who the fuck is this guy?" portion of the show. Yes, the USO told me to be a little more "clean," shall we say, with my subject matter after the first show in Iraq, but, as most of you need no help remembering, I am a fucking idiot and often react to external stimuli before I allow dispassionate logical analysis to guide my decision-making process.

In my defense, I sort of actually attempted to go clean at one point, but then got a little carried away by the collective energy of the group. Is that bad? I did try to couch it in terms of 1st Amendment rights when I said,

"It's because of you in the US Armed Forces that I get to make a living in New York and LA doing comedy. Some of the stuff I say is pretty offensive and you might not like it. But it's because of heroes like YOU protecting our country and protecting my freedom of speech that I GET to do it.... So buckle up, motherfuckers!"

I don't remember everything I did, but I know I didn't censor myself. I will talk to Tracy in the morning and I'm sure it will be fine, I remember thinking before I succeeded in incorporating the labored uvula-shuttering of my sleeping roommates into a fitful dream about being on a night Safari through a jungle full of SNORING ASSHOLES!!

Finally, after a stop-and-go night of sleep, watch and cell phone alarms meeped and jingled, signaling it was time to leave Iraq.

There had been plans to see Flintstone Village (scroll down) in the morning, but like much else in Iraq, the preservation of its memory would have to be from a safe distance. As we pulled onto the airstrip, we were told that the village had been bombed by insurgents anyway, and that it wasn't really quite the dazzling display of rocks and caves that it once had been. I protested in my mind. How were they even sure it had been bombed? "Hey, I distinctly remember this rock being over there!"

That was exactly when we heard the explosions.

It was a dull, visceral noise, like a bass system that shook the blue-and-white bus. The bus stopped and a second explosion rumbled through again. It felt like we were waiting for the approach of an angered tyrannosaurus rex. A third went off. The captain turned to us, unvexed: "Don't worry, those are controlled. They might just be destroying I.E.D.'s." Three or four more passed, nothing from the plasticene era showed up, and we were cleared to board the C-130 cargo plane that would take us back to Kuwait.

I had been pretty unemotional the whole trip. I mean, I was "glad" my pretentious liberal, bleeding heart Yankee ass got to go out there and meet some REAL people. It made some of the bullshit and stupid ass, hypocritical people in Log Angeles seem less important when I saw the effect some of my dick jokes had on thousands of impressionable, scared and, ultimately, honorable 19-25 year old kids.

But I hadn't actually gotten emotional about anything.

It was as if I had removed the capacity for judgment from my brain so that I could simply experience the trip, without any attempts to make pithy observations or bring myself to say shit like Iraq was "a life-changing experience." First of all, isn't everything? And second of all, what could possibly sound gayer than that?

However, two moments caught me off guard that trip and made me cry. They happened back-to-back.

We were about to hop on the plane, when I had to take a leak. Since the C-130 didn't seem to have a toilet (and even if it did, I don't like feeling like I'm peeing in a Yahtzee can) I beseeched Tracy to allow me to quickly make a run to a nearby port-a-potty. On the way out, I saw a young female soldier about 20 yards away holding an M-16 and ammunition belt that must have been a third of her body weight.

"Hey, come here!" She yelled out.

Damn, these lesbians are bossy, I thought.

I walked over and learned that she and the two guys she was standing with recognized me from the night before.

"Thanks for coming out here and doing this. It was a really great show last night," she said.

I responded, "Hey, thank you guys for being here. It's an honor.... So, how are you guys doing out here? How's the morale?"

"It's really a lot better now. You have no idea," she said.

I nodded and said "Good" and walked to the Captains waiting for me by the plane.

I blinked hard and slapped myself to keep myself in line. Luckily, there was an easy sweep of wind across the desert. Sand very well could have been in my eyes when I hugged the Captains goodbye.

I put on my helmet and kevlar and was walking up the steps to board the plane when a stout, African-American man bee-lined towards me. He introduced himself as Sergeant Decker and he unleashed an infectious, toothy, and magnanimous smile - the type of smile only an older black man can own; the type of smile that makes you want to go to a Baptist Church on Sunday morning; the type of smile that lets you know everything gonna be alright.

"Hey, Bill, do me a favor when you get back," he said.

"Yeah, man, whatever you want," I said.

"Vote."

And that was it. He gave me another broad smile, a crisp salute, and then he walked away.

I stood there and watched after him for a second, a quizzical look surely on my face.

We loaded onto the C-130 cargo plane, and this time Stu and I decided we would sit in the cockpit and witness a takeoff from a pilot's POV. In the cockpit, there was a pilot, co-pilot, and navigator who all seemed completely oblivious to our presence just feet behind them. They were flipping switches and talking to unseen people over headsets. It was all very ... emasculating. Pilots have that effect on me.

I'm a shitty flier, popping my head around like a squirrel at the slightest air pocket. On those particularly turbulent flights where I would squeeze my eyes shut, Vulcan death grip the arm rests for 4 hours, sweat, and make deals with a previously neglected God and his son Jesus Christ prior to landing, I always hated departing the plane and seeing the confident Captain, arms akimbo, looking at me with that glistening Gleem smile as if to say, "That didn't scare you, did it... PUSSY?!"

I always blush and swipe my hair behind my ears like a girl and manage a whispered "Thank you," overwhelmed by his daunting masculinity like some provincial twat out of a Bronte novel.

Ironically, I wasn't scared at all on this flight, even though I knew we would be flying more evasive combat maneuvers to depart Baghdad. I guess I felt like, "Hey, if I get shot down in Iraq, that's not the shittiest way to go, is it?" I could picture the conversations in the comedy clubs back in New York:

"Where's Bill been...I never liked that hacky douchebag."

"Oh, you didn't hear? He was shot down in a C-130 in Iraq."

".... but he WAS a badass, wasn't he?"

The propellers whirred, and the enormous plane took off down the runway. Stu and I stood up behind the pilot to watch the take off out of the window and to say bye for good to Baghdad. We looked at each other and smiled wide, feeling cool and privileged. We so wanted to high five.

Then Captain Jenkins yanked down on the stick and catapulted Stu and I crashing onto the floor behind us. We scrambled up and I could just make out an almost imperceptible smile on the lips of the co-pilot.

In media res, the flight plans changed and our C-130 was called to pick up some troops stranded at the southern Iraqi border near Iran.

Iran? I'm an American, so my knowledge of world geography is shitty, but that didn't sound like most casual of detours. In the movie of my life I was formulating in my head, THIS is the part where I die - on an impromptu rescue mission called into play minutes before I was supposed be flying back into civilian safety.

The co-pilot then told me and Stu to head back to the seats in the body of the plane since we were flying into "dangerous territory."

Instant pooplet.

Stu and I rushed back to the cargo benches, fastened the chin straps on our helmets, and breathlessly informed everyone, in not so many words, that we were all going to die.

A sober hour passed before that C-130 alit surprisingly smoothly on the ground and the green metallic badonkadonk hydraulically opened up at the back. Looking out, in the distance, we could make out four soldiers, almost mutated into mirages from the varying striations of heat issuing up from the desert floor.

The weary soldiers trudged in. They didn't say hi. They didn't acknowledge us. As far as I could tell, they didn't even look at us. They just sank onto the benches, sullenly, sitting apart from each other, hands still gripped on their M-16s. Their faces were covered with dirt and camouflage, and the soldier closest to me, a female in her 20's, stared straight ahead at the orange netting, silent and unblinking.

The navigator quietly came out and told us, "Make sure all of you are strapped in tightly when we fly out of here. This time it's going to be for real."

An ominous mood descended upon us. For once, we all shut up.

The somber tone was broken by the comic sight of Stu Stone rapidly harnessing his body to the canvas mesh behind him, taking his helmet off, and sitting on it.

"What are you doing?" Casper asked.

"There is no way I'm getting my balls shot off," Stu said. He was worried enemy gunfire was going to come up through the belly of the plane and specifically find its way into his nutsac. Someone has watched Apocalypse Now one too many times, I thought.

Normally, I would laugh, but the all-too-real thought of my balls being shot off seemed to squeeze off the throttle in my throat.

Jamie followed suit and nestled on top of his helmet.

Tracy came out of the cockpit and reiterated our fears, saying that we were, indeed, in "very hostile territory", and that the take off was going to be "intense."

Casper, sitting by the window, cockily chomped his gum and whipped out his camera, convinced that he was going to get a kick out of filming us having diarrhea.

Then the plane accelerated.

"CH-02" is short for "Craps Had: 2"

I can't say that the take-off "frightened" me. I don't know if that's the right word. I just know that my eyes, body, and brain couldn't seem to form the proper links to collectively decide on a coherent reaction. The plane accelerated. Ridiculously. The quickest Chuck-Yaeger-face acceleration I have ever experienced. At some point, very soon, we were airborne. However, instead of arcing up, we seemed to stay level. Had we actually lifted from the ground yet?

I tentatively eked my head up to peer out the window by Casper's left shoulder, and saw nothing but the tops of one-level houses. We were flying at maximum speed perhaps 100 feet above the ground. Suddenly, the left wing of the plane dipped, and through the window it looked like the earth had swallowed up the sky. All I saw was brown. It seemed, for a second, like I could almost make out the finer details of the dust. We were going over 300mph and maybe 50 feet above the ground and closing. We had been hit! We were going to crash! Was that a prairie dog?

And then we were up. Jenkins must have yanked down even harder on the joystick because we flew straight up, shrinking into our seats as the G's pushed down on us. We seemed to be launching into orbit. It was physically painful. It was viscerally terrifying. More pooplets. Finally, we leveled out, there was a second sharp twist and dip, and soon after, we were coasting back towards Kuwait.

I looked at Casper after the maneuvers, the cockiness, for once, completely wiped from his face. The camera hung loosely at his side. He appeared even more wan than usual. I looked at him and shook my head, unable to do or say anything else.

"I swallowed my gum," Casper said. He wasn't joking.

When we landed, I was curious about what had happened. I asked Tracy if she had ever had such a difficult take-off and she said she hadn't. I was certain we had been shot at. Captain Jenkins came out to get a soda from a cooler and I approached him.

"Hey man, what happened back there. Were we under fire? We were, weren't we?"

Captain Jenkins fished around in the cooler and pulled out a Sprite.

"Naw. I just knew that you guys were back there and I wanted to make it a fun ride for you."

I looked at him, an expletive-laden follow-up question surely ambling its way towards my tongue at any moment. He popped open the soda, gave me a wink, and walked back into the cockpit.

I blushed and pushed my hair behind my ears with my fingertips.

Back at Kuwait, ready to head back to Germany on Lufthansa, I asked Tracy about the possibility of coming back with the USO. She said, "How about February 29th, 2010? You free?"

It wasn't said with anger or malice. It fell trippingly off the tongue, like it was an injection-molded response to an anticipated question. I half-laughed, quickly deducing that, despite my ignorance of all things leap-year, that date did not exist.

Jamie likes to play a game about me called "Bill: Dumb or Not Dumb?" where he points out that I'm a cum laude Aerospace Engineering Princeton graduate who lacks the slightest iota of common sense and social tact. After he announces it's time to play "Bill: Dumb or Not Dumb?" he will then ask the group to evaluate my latest foot-in-the-mouth or, sometimes, foot-in-the-keypad debacle. The Camp Liberty set was clearly a dumb move. I was "urged" not to do that stupid joke about a kindergarten teacher being fisted but I did it anyway. I had ruined my relationship with the USO and set up a situation that potentially had unsavory and possible legal ramifications for the troops.

Then, about 3 days after I got back (exactly 10 days before Joey Renteria's 30th birthday barbecue), I got an email from Jamie. It was forwarded from Sergeant Decker who, unbeknownst to me during our conversation a few days earlier, was there that night.

This was the email, untouched and unedited:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Hey, Jamie, whats going on ?

I figure you guys have made it home safe by now, I just wanted to see if this email worked..... I got an Iraqi Flag for you from downtown,... something you can put in your garage. Tell Stu he can have my boonie cap it's Baghdad tested and approved... anyway man that was a dream come true being with you guys, because yall so down to earth.... Thanks, from every soldier you guys performed for,... people are still talking about that shit.... Jamie be eazy man......

P.S tell Bill I respect him so much, because he told me before the second show they wanted him to change it,.. And I told him just be yourself and they'll love it.... And he did, and we loved it...

A

Okay, maybe there were three moments that made me cry.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

POSTSCRIPT: Joey Renteria's 30th Birthday Party

I ended up making it to Joey Renteria's 30th birthday party in El (insert the name of a Mexican word), California, 45 minutes outside of Los Angeles.

The party and his house were very... Mexican. Yes, there was a piñata, tequila, and more virgin mary's and crosses than you could shake a tamale at.

It was just me, Stu Stone, and Chris Roletter (Jamie's assistant). Some of the elevated sense of camaraderie had already been lost as everyone else had something to do or didn't feel like it or how far away is it? or blahblahblah.

We three toasted, drank "a special drink, just drink it, mang!" concocted by his cousin or brother or fellow border crosser and we finally settled down and ended up having a great time.

There were wrinkled grandmadres and grandpadres and little children running around swinging whiffle bats to smash the papier-mache burro, inevitably hitting hombres in their churros, much to the delight of all children, who like nothing more than watching testicles being demolished.

We stayed 'til the smoke of summer wildfires painted the sky overhead an imperial violet with the last hurrah of the sun. It was a perfect bookend to the trip in Iraq: the three of us watching the panorama of another still desert devouring another setting sun. We shook hands, made pleas to stay in touch, made plans to make an important documentary about the trip, and ultimately made promises to never forget the impermeable bond we shared.

I haven't seen Chris or Joey or Stu since.

For that matter, I haven't seen Paul, Casper, or heard hide nor hair from the USO. As far as I know, no one has gotten together to do anything with the hundreds of hours of video footage and multiple gigabytes of photographs.

I guess it's just another set of experiences that make up a story that make up a life and nothing more.

I like to think it's different and it meant something a little more. And I hope some of the people involved, the guys on the shortbus, the folks from the USO, and some of the soldiers might read this and smile.

Or at least think "Oh yeah, that's right... it was just like that..."

THE END

Posted by Bill Dawes at 7:55 PM

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