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2006
Soap Box Archives The Marines Have Landed 04/28/06 A young man of my acquaintance whom we will call Lance came to one of our shows in Virginia just before he deployed to Iraq. I gave him a fiddle bow I used in the show and asked him to give it back to me when we came over. We would see him at Al Taqqadum the next stop. His mother-in-law had given me his wedding band he had left at home and asked me to deliver it to him. When we landed he was standing on the side of the runway. I gave him his ring and we spent the day together and he gave me the fiddle bow, which had been broken and repaired with a bullet casing. I gave it back to him and told him to deliver it to me when he got home and we’d put it in the museum. I’m looking forward to that day and I know he is. Al Taqqadum is an extremely dangerous piece of real estate near Fallujuh west of Baghdad with some Army, Navy and Air Force personnel and a huge contingency of Marines. Shortly after arriving we hopped on a helicopter and flew to the outlying base of Habbinayah. We were expecting to sign autographs and take pictures with a handful of troops but when we arrived we found hundreds waiting for us. Then somebody produced a guitar and what was supposed to be a small meet and greet turned into an impromptu acoustical concert and I loved every minute of it. After visiting
with some other troops on the way back to the The bad guys had lobbed some mortar rounds over the wire and wounded four people. Three of them were not seriously injured but one young man had to have surgery and we went by the hospital to see him before we left the next day. The show that night was indoors and the joint was rockin’ as a room full of rowdy troops showed their appreciation for the first show they’d had in 11 months. Another autograph and picture taking session and we went back to our quarters to rest up for our trip to Mosul the next day. A trip that unfortunately never happened because the aircraft we were supposed to travel on had mechanical problems and we couldn’t get out of Al Taqqadum until that night when we would have to head on to Baghdad for the show we had scheduled there the next night. We really hated to disappoint the troops in Mosul but there was, absolutely nothing I could do about it. It was not that far, in the States we would have driven the distance, but you don’t do that in Iraq. It’s simply too dangerous. So we decided that since we couldn’t get to the troops in Mosul we would spend the day visiting as many of the troops as we could, some of which had not been able to make it to the show. We were in for an interesting day.
Pray for our troops. What do you think? God Bless America Charlie Daniels
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