Big-Joe-Radio
8/11/2014ned to hear the news of Robin Williams passing away. At this point it is rumored that he in fact took his life. I’d like to give my own perspective on the wonderful man that I thought Robin Williams was. In a faraway war zone he called us heroes. Yet I think he was one of America’s heroes in the fact that he made so many people laugh.
I was
having a good day on the day that I heard the news. I went on a very nice date
with a very intelligent and beautiful lady downtown. We spoke of many things
that interested the both of us. After our date, we parted ways and I did my
normal routine downtown; I picked out books to read from Barnes and Nobles and
I made my way to a few of my favorite places to wet my whistle. By that I mean
I enjoyed the beers of some of my favorite hole in the wall restaurant/bars.
Later
on I got the text about Robin. The lady whom I met earlier told me of his
passing. My mind instantly went back to the time of 2009. That is the time that
Robin Williams, Kid Rock, and cyclist Lance Armstrong visited troops in a USO
sponsored trip to Iraq. 3 of the year’s playboy playmates also showed up. Leave
it to the government to fly in 3 beautiful women among mostly home-sick and
horny men. Either way, the show was great. Witness how epic it was as I
transition from this paragraph unto the next one…ready…wait for it…now!
……and
here I am again to tell you about each person that took the stage at that USO
event. The first thing they did was bring in the play-bunnies. They were very
attractive. The crowd was cheering very loudly for them. I do remember that
they were not scantily dressed as one might want to assume that they were. They
actually wore jeans and a long sleeved shirt. They were sweet ladies who told
us all that we were their heroes and those sorts of things. Me personally, I
don’t feel like I am some sort of hero in that sense, but it felt good to hear
the support.
Next
up was Kid Rock. He brought out his guitar. Of course he talked about how he
loved the troops and was there to support us. He went on to make jokes about
the fight that he had recently gotten into with Tommy Lee, the drummer from
Motley Crue. Kid was the new man in Pamela Anderson’s life while of course
Tommy Lee was the former husband of hers who also had kids together. The shit
had the whole place rolling. He played some good songs which included a few
remakes of some Hank Williams songs. That son-of-a-bitch played a song called Naked Woman and Beer. Those were two of
the things in very high demand in a war zone.
Next
up was Lance Armstrong. Up to this point there was a great vibe going between
us in the crowd and the performers on stage. We loved having beautiful woman
telling us they were in support of courageous men. Kid Rock could have almost
been a soldier himself. He was so down to earth and not afraid to talk about
the trashy parts of his life in order to make us laugh and to also set the mood
for some good country/rock music. Hey, he might have hit Tommy Lee, but he was
a good dude to me. Lance totally changed that vibe.
From
the minutes Lance was on the stage, it never felt more awkward and un-genuine.
First of all he made it about him. He talked about who he knew and how they
were able to get him over on a jet to support us. Well that is mighty white of
you, Mr. Armstrong. He was a very distasteful man in my opinion as he continued
to tie his visit to us with himself as if we should be so fortunate. It wasn’t as direct as I write it to be, but
the under layer of his message made it very clear that he was trying to help
his own career by saying he visited the troops in Iraq. It was very fake. It
sounded very scripted. He was a very insulting man. It never once surprised me
that years later he would be discovered for doping to win all those tour de
France races. I thought it was just me who picked up on that, but everyone else
I talked to felt the same way.
Anyways,
Lance finally took his self-glory seeking ass off the stage. I hope he was not
late to his next race, the Tour de Douche. Now before I get into how much fun
it was to see Robin Williams on stage, I need to first tell you about the place
were actually located. There is some morbid history to this event that will
help.
Back
in the day of Saddam Hussein, his son Uday, was in charge of the national
sports teams. This included the Iraqi soccer team. It could be common knowledge
that his son ordered the torture and murder of some of the Iraqi soccer team
members. The executions took place on a soccer field. That soccer field was
inside the exact stadium that we were now in attendance at. In Iraq, I was at
Balad Air Base. The base was one of Saddam’s military instillations. The United
States Air Force bombed it very heavily until we were able to take over the
base, and make the base the most heavily used runway and Air Base operations.
If an American was coming into Iraq, there was a high chance that he eventually
flew into Balad. Balad still had many historical sites such as one of Saddam’s
palaces and even a mosque. The American military just built around it, to
include this soccer field where we were now essentially standing on killing
ground.
Finally
the man, Robin Williams, comes on stage and Kid Rock is on stage too. Robin
Williams is kind of dressed like a gangster, walking around holding his balls,
and doing the best gangsterish gestures and ghetto talk. It takes about a
minute or two until you realize that Robin is making fun of Kid Rock while Kid
Rock is playing some of his famous guitar music. The man right out of the gate
was a comedic genius. His impersonations of Kid Rock were perfect. Kid Rock was
dying from laughing so hard. The crowd was going nuts. Our spirits were
uplifted.
I
forgot to mention a few things. In the crowd were 3 Humvees with 50 caliber
machine guns on them. Soldiers and Airmen were sitting on top of them. During
that time, outside the wire, Iraqi citizens were still shooting mortars over
the fence. People died all the time from these mortars. In fact, Balad had the
nickname, Mortoritaville. So Robin Williams goes into his standup first of all
asking, “What the Fuck did I do to get into a situation where I could die doing
comedy! Maybe I should go outside the wire and tell the Iraqis to join us for a
few laughs and maybe the war would be over”. He then goes into the crazy ride
into the base on a Hercules C-130. When you fly into the war zone, there is
what is called a “Combat Landing”. A plane doesn’t just fly in straight and
level like a normal plane landing. The plane flies over the runway at a very
high altitude. If it is at night, all the outside and inside lights will be
turned off. Finally the plane will drop the nose and basically do a spiral or
circular decent and as quickly as possible to avoid fire or missile attack.
Robin
Williams was going into how not only did the onboard entertainment sucked
(there was none), but he said he about shit himself when the airplane did that
“combat landing”. He said that he nearly pissed all over himself because he was
in the bathroom. To add to the story, he took a water bottle and mimicked the
scene in front of us, splashing water all over him. My face was hurting from
laughing so hard.
“How
fucking crazy of a place does this have to be that I am in a stadium with
humvees with 50 calibers on them!”. The jokes went on and on. By his joking, he
was illustrating that we as uniformed members experience things that most
people back home have no idea about. He had the most genius way of taking a bad
looking situation, and finding the humor in it. You also got the sense that he
truly supported what we were doing out there, even if he didn’t understand what
was going on. We were somebody’s sons, dads, wives, brothers, and friends.
Every human being can relate to that.
I
can’t really remember much else or at least not vivid enough to write about. I
just remember walking away thinking that I had just witnessed two polar
opposites. I saw a very impersonal speech given by Lance Armstrong. Then I had
seen a goofy Kid Rock. Finally I had seen up close the stand-up comedy that was
Robin Williams.
So to
me that is what is so sad. Not that he passed away so much, but that he was
young. If his death really was a suicide, that is hurtful in a way. He meant so
much to those of us going through a difficult time. He made people laugh in a
place that was normally full of death and despair. He was our hero even though
he repeatedly called us his hero. I wish I was there to tell him that in his
last moments. Thank you for reading my journey and how it involved one of the
funniest men to ever live.
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