Relaxing

I woke up this morning to the sounds of explosions and sirens. The only night I've gotten to bed a descent hour after relaxing to some good music. I wanted to sleep much later but, whatcha gonna do?

Last night a band came to our base to play for the troops. As I walked into the tent for the concert I thought I might have missed it. There were only 20 or so people gathered to hear them. As we walked in, the General goes up on the stage to introduce them and I head over to sit next to some friends. The introductions are made and the band starts playing good ole music. Some rock and roll, some country, some hip hop and one rap songs are played. But their staple music was rock and roll. As the songs are being played the General leans over and says to me that these songs were written and orginally performed before most of the kids in here were born. And that we are probably the only two people in here that remember these songs on records or 8-track tape. I would have to agree, and I bet even the band probably wasn't even born yet. But the neat part about the night is just how good it is to hear familiar music. And how much music is a part of our life. They played music as well as the original artists. They played music from "Heart" like I heard in concert some 26 years ago. The lead guitar player was probably the best I've ever heard. The General knew him from back home, in the civilian world. It was just a fluke that they ran into each other over here, "43 miles north of Baghdad". But the concert was scheduled for a little over 1 hour but at the end of 2 1/2 hours, two broken lead guitars later, the concert was over. The band said that they thought when they saw only 20 or so people that this would be a short gig. But what they saw was how much we really enjoyed the music and much we really appreciated them being here for us. I think they saw it in our faces, we needed this break. They made a comment that made me feel good. They said they had a full house for the troops down in Tallil, Iraq the other night and that we made them feel better about this tour than that whole crowd. But I know I finally relaxed. It felt good for me to sit around, enjoying the music and the company of friends in a combat zone. The picture above are some of the people that I work with. In fact,the two people on the left are the people that put the show together. This is their job, to provide things like this for the troops. And the others are from protocol office and the girl on the far right is the General's executive officer. So really they all had to be at the concert. That is that.