America's North Shore Journal

For­mer Miami Dol­phins head coach Don Shula –cen­ter– poses for a photo with a group of ser­vice mem­bers at the Pat Till­man United Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tions, a build­ing on Bagram Air Field, July 15, dur­ing a celebrity visit to Afghanistan.

Celebri­ties stopped by here yes­ter­day to enter­tain troops as part of the star-studded USO's Sum­mer Troop Visit.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the celebri­ties are trav­el­ing through­out the U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand area of oper­a­tions to thank troops for their ser­vice and sacrifice.

The celebri­ties include actors Bradley Cooper and D.B. Sweeney, for­mer Tampa Bay Buc­ca­neers run­ning back War­rick Dunn, National Foot­ball League Hall of Famer Don Shula, and sports com­men­ta­tor and model Leeann Tweeden.

The group's first stop was aboard the USS Ronald Rea­gan, an air­craft car­rier cur­rently under way in the Gulf of Oman. From the float­ing air­port to the sands of Iraq to the hills of Afghanistan, the stars accom­pa­ny­ing Mullen said they were excited about enter­tain­ing the troops deployed overseas.

"We feel like we want to give some­thing back," said Shula, a well-known for­mer Miami Dol­phins coach. "We appre­ci­ate so much what our troops do, and we wanted to do some­thing in return."

Sports announcer and model Leeann Twee­den poses with Ronny and Benzzi, a cou­ple of patrol detec­tor dogs out­side the Pat Till­man United Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tions, a build­ing on Bagram Air Field, July 15, dur­ing a celebrity visit to Afghanistan.

Trav­el­ling to dif­fer­ent loca­tions presents logis­ti­cal chal­lenges. Travel in Afghanistan is dan­ger­ous, and some of the out­posts are so remote, the only way to reach them is by helicopter.

"The hard­est part is get­ting the tal­ent out to where they have to go," said Army Capt. Dena De Lucia, deputy chief of quality-of-life pro­grams for U.S. Forces Afghanistan.

"Get­ting to remote [for­ward oper­at­ing bases] means get­ting heli­copters, and we got lucky this time because the 82^nd Air­borne gra­ciously gave us two to use," De Lucia said.

Plan­ning these types of trips can be as har­row­ing as plan­ning an air-assault mission.

"It takes weeks and months in advance to plan some­thing like this," De Lucia said. "It's a very ardu­ous process. You have to con­tact camps and make sure they can sup­port the visit, and make sure you can get to where they need to go."

Trav­el­ling through­out Afghanistan was dif­fi­cult for the USO tour, but well worth it to both the troops they vis­ited and the stars themselves.

"All of the places we go are really impor­tant, but the smaller loca­tions are very aus­tere, where they don't have hot show­ers or nec­es­sar­ily a hot meal every day," said Rachel Tis­chler, USO enter­tain­ment oper­a­tions vice pres­i­dent. "So it's very spe­cial to bring that touch of home to those peo­ple that don't nec­es­sar­ily have those crea­ture comforts."

Many of the hun­dreds that lined up out­side the Pat Till­man USO here yes­ter­day were delighted that the stars could break away from busy sched­ules to visit them.

"It's great to have the sup­port of celebri­ties over here," Army Sgt. Lin­nea Biniak said. "Them being here and show­ing sup­port for the troops def­i­nitely raises morale."

Actor Bradley Cooper greets Ronny, a patrol detec­tor dog and his han­dler Navy Master-at-Arms 2^nd Class Gina Pron­zati out­side the Pat Till­man United Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tions, a build­ing on Bagram Air Field, July 15, dur­ing a celebrity visit to Afghanistan.

Inside the USO build­ing, which is named for Pat Till­man, the ex-NFL player and U.S. Army Ranger killed in Afghanistan in 2004, the vis­it­ing celebri­ties strug­gled to give ade­quate atten­tion to the ser­vice mem­bers who had come to see them.

Rather than stay indoors, the stars decided to "walk the line" out­side, where they could meet with more peo­ple and make sure every­one who came to see them received an auto­graph or per­sonal photo.

In addi­tion to the "grip and grins" pic­tures, some Sol­diers were given the oppor­tu­nity to talk per­son­ally with celebri­ties. Army Spc. Jonathan Griz­zard asked Sweeney about sev­eral of his films, includ­ing "Fire in the Sky," a 1993 film in which Sweeney plays a man abducted by aliens.

"That was the sweet­est expe­ri­ence I'd ever had," Griz­zard said. "I waited almost an hour, but I would have waited two hours — it was totally worth it!"

"I've got sev­eral movies that peo­ple really responded to, and it's very flat­ter­ing for peo­ple to bring up a movie that's 10 years old and talk about spe­cific scenes," Sweeney said. "I kind of get to relive the process of mak­ing it, and it under­scores what I think my role as an enter­tainer is, to help peo­ple for­get their jobs for a lit­tle while and get through the day a lit­tle easier."

Else­where in the line, foot­ball fans shook hands and "mugged" with Dunn. Iraqi war vet­er­ans swapped sto­ries with Twee­den from her last trip overseas.

Cooper was a big draw fol­low­ing his most recent hit film, "The Hangover."

Mean­while, inside the build­ing, Shula shared his most mem­o­rable moments with diehard sports fans eager for a glimpse of his Super Bowl ring and to get his auto­graph on their footballs.

Stay­ing until well after 10 p.m., the stars made sure every­one had got­ten what they'd come for before finally pack­ing it in to pre­pare for another day of trav­el­ing to more Afghan loca­tions the fol­low­ing day.

"It's amaz­ing for them to come out here and rep­re­sent the United States," said Air Force Mas­ter Sgt. Ray­mond Stone. "Not many peo­ple come out here, and I think it's great that they do it. They've got other things that they have to do, yet they've taken the time to come out here and show their sup­port to us."

DVIDS
Pho­tos and story by Capt. Michael Greenberger