Like Me (22 page)

A couple of times during the show, someone in uniform grabbed the mic and yelled out that a certain group of guys needed to leave the audience in a hurry and go do something war-related. There were actual emergency situations that had happened while we were playing—a first for those of us onstage.

At one point, while the band was playing an instrumental break in a song, Kid Rock shouted in my ear, “Do you know the song that I did with Sheryl Crow called ‘Picture’?” I told him
that I’d heard it, that I knew the melody but was uncertain of the words. He said, “That’s cool. We’re gonna do it and I’m going to tell you your lines as they come.”

The crowd’s intensity never let up for the entire ninety minutes. In fact, the volume level grew. Models and professional athletes were singing background vocals, having the time of their lives. We eventually wrapped up the performance, and we all laughed when Kid Rock said, “Hey, now
that
was rock and roll!”

I
returned to the Middle East a year later, this time with my entire band and crew. We didn’t fly in and out of Iraq every day to the safety and comfort of a posh hotel. Once we arrived in Iraq, we stayed in Iraq. I experienced more than I ever imagined I would, and it changed my life. We had days filled with excitement and fun, but when things got heavy, the experience changed dramatically.

On September 19, 2004, one of the last few days of an eight-day
tour, we choppered into a remote camp in Iraq called FOB Summerall. At the time, the troops on the ground were a part of the Big Red One. During World War II, my grandfather, Sgt. Harold Henry, had served as part of the Big Red One, and in some way I felt I was honoring him by being there.

I’m not sure what kind of aircraft I’m flying in, but I’m sure it was exhilarating! Afghanistan, 2005
.

After the show, a young man from Apollo, Pennsylvania, introduced himself to me as Josh Henry. I got chills and informed him that my grandfather had been a member of the Big Red One and that his last name was Henry too. Two different wars, two soldiers named Henry.

The band and I stayed and visited with the soldiers at FOB Summerall until about three o’clock in the morning.

After only a few hours’ sleep, we flew to Camp Taji to do the last show of the tour. When we landed, we were informed that Josh Henry had just been killed in action.

After the show, even though I was exhausted, I didn’t really want to go to bed. It seemed that I wasn’t alone—the band and crew weren’t headed for their bunks either. Usually, when we’re staying on a base, I sleep at a different location than the band and crew, because military bases determine sleeping quarters according to gender. Our sleeping arrangements that night at Taji were unusual; we were all assigned to stay in the same little building. It was the building of the chaplain’s office, which felt comforting on that particular night. Before we arrived, bunks were put in a couple of the small rooms in the building. There was a short hallway that connected the bunkrooms, the bathroom, and the chaplain’s office.

Once all of our equipment had been packed up after the show, the guys headed off to midnight chow, as it’s called in the military. After I signed autographs, I was taken back to the bunkhouse. One by one, the rest of our group gathered there. Within a few minutes, we all ended up sitting on the concrete floor with our backs against the plywood walls, talking about how we were feeling.

The shared emotion was one of shock. We’d all been around the world together many times, and we’d experienced a lot of situations, but this was different—this was a war, a real war. It wasn’t something on CNN being reported to us—we had stepped into the story itself.

As the men in my group talked openly, I heard something unfold in their discussion and it shrouded my emotions for a few minutes. I sat quietly as they talked about an element of this experience that had never occurred to me. A few admitted that they had often felt guilty for not serving their country in the military as their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers had done. My respect and understanding of how Josh’s death affected them, as men, grew in great measure. We’d had so much fun and excitement on the tour, but now we had been given a much different glimpse into the lives of those who serve.

The emotional ante would be raised yet again the next morning. We were flown in Black Hawk helicopters to Baghdad International Airport, where we were to board our C-130 plane to get us out of Iraq. It’s common when we fly military planes for flight schedules to be ever changing and not on time. We were supposed to wait an hour or so before our flight was to leave Baghdad, but our officer in charge continued to check in with us and tell us that it would be just a while longer. This waiting went on for a few hours.

We didn’t do a lot of talking as we waited for our flight, but we did stick together in a pack. Many of us had been keeping journals during the trip, so a few of us were writing and others were taking pictures. The officer in charge of us that day was a woman. I noticed that she approached our tour manager, they had a brief conversation in the corner, and then they both walked over to our group and asked us to gather around.

The twenty-something-year-old officer told us that we were about to have the sad but honorable responsibility of being aboard an H.R. flight. She had to explain to us that “H.R.”
stands for “human remains.” We were given precise instructions on how to board the plane and what to do and not do during the entire flight. You could hear the collective breath knocked out of us as we listened to the officer. Her youth was juxtaposed with her solemn duty, and I could tell that not only was she emotional that a life had been lost, but she felt sorry for us that we were having this experience. After she said the words of an officer, she paused and said the words of just another person in the room. “You guys okay? I know, this sucks so bad. I’m sorry. Hang in there, you’re almost out of here.”

The body was loaded into the plane before any passengers could go aboard. Most of us were traveling with a backpack and a rolling computer bag, and we were instructed to avoid rolling any bags while passing by the body. They asked us to show respect by not listening to iPods or using laptop computers. We were expected to sit quietly during the flight, which we did.

There was a primitive wooden box draped with an American flag, strapped tightly to the floor at our feet. We were each buckled into a canvas seat that hung from one interior wall of the plane and from a steel divide in the center of the aircraft. Five of us on one side and five on the other, we were just six feet apart and between us was the body. The toes of my tennis shoes would have easily touched the wooden casket, but I pulled my feet back up under my seat.

A
s the wheels of our C-130 lifted off the paved runway, I looked around at our group and saw that not one of us was trying to hide our emotions—we were all crying.

After we landed in Kuwait, a colonel came aboard to tell us what was about to happen. Since we had picked up a few military personnel in Baghdad who were headed to Kuwait, he addressed them first. The last thing he said to them was, “Be advised that the deceased is a civilian, so it is not necessary to
stand at attention.” I was relieved that Josh wasn’t in that casket, but on the other hand, I was also sad that it wasn’t Josh.

The casket was to be removed first and we were to follow. As soon as the big back hatch of the plane was opened and lowered to the ground, I saw about twenty uniformed men and women standing quietly. A few of them hopped up into the aircraft and removed the straps that had secured the casket to the hot steel floor. Several audible commands were given and, like choreographed dancers, they picked up the wooden box and began a slow walk down the ramp. The others in uniform positioned behind the C-130 created a human corridor which connected the path of the casket to the back of a white box truck. The door of the truck was rolled up and the engine was not running. I recall noticing that despite the fact that we were on a flight line, the setting was eerily quiet.

I followed behind the small procession and took a place next
to the others on the ground. Everyone in uniform was standing at full attention as the men carrying the casket lifted it and slid it into the back of the truck. Then one man climbed inside the back of the truck and pulled the door down, shutting himself inside.

There is not a more appreciative audience in the world than our troops. Somewhere in the Middle East. 2004. (Clay Krasner, bass guitar; Steve Cudworth, acoustic guitar.)

Those in uniform relaxed their stance and walked away. The colonel was next to me and saw that I was crying. “Sir,” I asked him, “even though you told everyone that he was a civilian and that they didn’t need to stand at attention, why did they anyway?” “Ma’am, because he’s an American and he’s going home,” he said.

In the days to come, we would learn that man in the casket was Eugene Armstrong, an American contractor who was one of several men kidnapped and beheaded in Baghdad.

I was worn out by my ten-day trip to the Middle East.

I knew I would never be the same.

Judy Seale and I had a wonderful day with the kids in a town called Balad, Iraq. Most of these kids had never attended a day of school in their lives until this school was built by the Coalition forces. We showed up with school supplies, soap, and toys. The children were excited, and my heart was stolen a thousand times that day. 2004
.

M
y journey to Iraq in 2004 had affected me so profoundly that I knew it was time to come out to my sister, Jeny. I felt that I’d been given a gift in seeing, firsthand, how delicate and precious life is, and although Josh Henry and others weren’t around any longer to live their lives, I was.

The moment I arrived home, I called Jeny and asked her to get in her car and head to Tennessee. After she arrived, we stayed up and talked for hours about the trip to Iraq, and she understood that it had been a life-changing experience for me. The next morning, we were sitting outside in my courtyard drinking coffee and I blurted out, “Jeny, I need to tell you something—I’m gay.” I started crying. She stood up and grabbed me out of my chair and hugged me.

We talked a lot during the next couple of days. My objective was for my sister to know me. I wanted her to know about my life and from that moment on, she has.

Jeny’s husband, a conservative Christian, believes homosexuality is a sin. Jeny and Mike’s kids are a big part of my life, and it would devastate me if that ever changed. I wasn’t willing to risk his judgment of me, so I begged Jeny not to tell him.

Mike is a wonderful person, a good father and good husband to my sister. I knew it was a lot to ask her to keep a secret from
her husband, but I suppose we both felt a similar uneasiness about what his reaction might be.

Jeny is my best friend, and our friendship became even stronger once I confided in her about my sexuality. When I told her, I was surprised that she didn’t say, “Chel, I knew the whole time.” Instead, she told me that she’d wondered about it before but then decided otherwise. Most of all, she said that she was happy and relieved to know that I wasn’t living my life alone.