March 31, 2004
What I Did Over the Holidays
In the April edition of the "Class Notes," fellow MIT alumnus, Owen Franken (MIT '68), shared an account of his most recent Hannukah, during which he followed his brother, Al, on his 4th USO tour entertaining troops abroad. Owen's brother sounds like a pretty funny guy.
(With pictures!)
From Owen Franken:
The Holidays aren't over yet, but here goes: I just came back from eight days as the USO photographer on a trip with my brother, Al, in Kuweit, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan.
Al and I seemed to be the only "Liberals" on the trip, and we got along with everyone fantastically including some real redneck country singers and two people from Fox News, the Army's favorite. We did run into a lot of soldiers who asked Al to sign his book, Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them, a Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
It was great to be around so many people with a crazy sense of humor, including a very jolly fat guitar player, who when told that in Iraq in the summer it is 140°ree; in the sun, told us that he might go back there then and sell his shade.
One highlight of the trip was the lighting of Hannukah candles in one of Saddam's Palaces in Baghdad. We had this funny idea that the candles would fall over and CNN would be reporting that the Palace of Saddam Hussein was burned down by Jews. Other highlights:
- The Taliban Cheerleaders. Al introduced them, but they could not perform because they could not dance or even listen to music. He convinced them that Afghanistan had been liberated so they did a raunchy routine and stripped off their burkas to reveal that they were in fact the Washington Redskin Cheerleaders, much to the joy of the screaming troops.
- Al Franken as Saddam Hussein in handcuffs trying to make a deal to tell where the WMD's are if they uncuffed him and gave him a fifteen minute headstart ("That's all I need"). When refused, he broke away from his MP guards and ran to the edge of the stage yelling "f--- y--" at all the soldiers. [A "G rated" version of this skit was done on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion and can be found at this URL]
- Daryll Worley's moving song, "Have you forgotten?" about 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. Even I was in tears when he sang it, especially the night he made a private concert for about five of us in Saddam's marble Palace at one am, after the Hannukah lighting.
As for the soldiers, they all want to go home, and they individually have different senses of their missions. The soldiers in Afghanistan have a better sense of why they are there than the ones in Iraq, especially those National Guard persons and reservists. In Iraq they are very nervous about their security, as you can imagine, but realize that now there, they have to stay and stick it out and try to secure the place. They are the victims of an administration that only considered the best case scenario.
Enjoy These Images:
Al did a great piece on his trip in the most recent Mother Jones magazine (which, as you might imagine from our masthead, we endorse heartily). Much of this same material is in the article.
Posted by: Steven Staton at March 31, 2004 05:06 PMThe Mother Jones article is good. It can be read at http://www.mojones.com/news/feature/2004/03/02_400.html.
Posted by: Charles at March 31, 2004 05:10 PM