A Very Profound Day

by John Dowling

Army National Guard 1st Lt. Erik S. McCrae, 25, of Portland, Ore., was killed along with four other Task Force Baghdad soldiers when their convoy was attacked by insurgents with an improvised explosive device and rocket propelled grenades on June 4, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq. The soldiers were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry, headquartered in Cottage Grove, Ore.

GIJ: What is the most profound event you’ve experienced from any of your USO trips?

TK: Most of the time I’ve been over there in my 100 shows I’ve flown in by helicopter.

During a trip in 2004, we were getting ready to leave Baghdad and about six or seven senators were there and took our plane. We were told we were going to be laid over until 2 or 3 p.m. until another plane came in from Kuwait City. They asked if there was anything else we wanted to do while we were there. We said we’d like to meet some more soldiers, but we had already done three shows in the Baghdad area and had met everybody.

They then asked if we would like to go out to the Abu Ghraib prison and we said “sure.” We got our “battle-rattle” on and suited up thinking we were going to jump on a chopper to fly out there, but we came out front and Col. James Brown, who was in charge of the MPs, and five other humvees were there. They told us they didn’t have us scheduled for a chopper so we were going to have to convoy. So we rode a convoy about 35 miles out to Abu Ghraib. That was pretty much a big dose of reality for us.

We walked through the prison, met everybody, toured it and came back about 2 p.m. and immediately got on our C-17. After a few minutes, they made us unbuckle and get off the plane to stand in formation as they loaded the coffin of a soldier named 1st Lt. Erik McCrae. Then we rode back to Kuwait City with him.

We usually play spades everywhere we go. We have one deck of cards that we’ve played with for six years. Our’s are so fuzzy and used that the stack is about half as thick as it was when they were new. We’ve played like 1,500 or some ridiculous number of games with them. Anytime we get up to cruising altitude we break out folding camp chairs, get an ice chest and play spades until we land. We also play whenever we are laid over in the camps.  We always keep the same teams, keep a running score and kind of have a grudge match. That is the only flight that we’ve ever flown on during a USO tour that we didn’t play spades. We were all just sort of bummed out.

Me and the boys I travel with on those USO trips have these little bronze wrist bands made up in memory of the fallen soldiers. I have one with Lt. McCrae’s name, rank and the day he died on it. I’ve met his family several times since then and as long as I’m alive and have my sanity, I’ll never forget that name. That was a very profound day.