The USO

Take a look at this: 

A Tent.

You wouldn't expect this innocuous looking, beige tent to be a place where people gather to socialize and go for a general morale boost, would you?

Boom:

Soldiers socializing and boosting morale.

Turns out you were wrong! It is a place where people socialize and gather to boost morale! The seemingly standard tent pictured above from the outside is the USO headquarters for KAF. The structure itself offers computers and phones available for use, as well as designated TVs for video gaming available for sign up. There's also comfy furniture, large televisions playing the stuff people over here want to watch (largely sporting events and movies). There's also this little area where soldiers can record a dvd of themselves reading children's books to their children and can send home - it's adorable. There's also my favorite thing so far, a movie theater!

Example of one of the aforementioned TVs.

A very similar example.

Video game area.

Computers available.

I've only visited twice so far, but I would like to spend some more of my limited free time here. They run activities like guitar hero competitions (an opportunity to show off my truly remarkable skills at guitar... hero), and I'm investigating the opportunity of volunteering to run a trivia night event... not sure how receptive the KAF community will be to that idea.

The USO is generally known for bringing morale-raising entertainments to the troops and they've been doing that since 1941 - its history is actually very interesting. Those same sort of entertainments exist here, but I never knew how much more they do. I'm appreciative for myself, but also for the troops serving here at KAF who have this great opportunity to divert their attentions even for a little while with the services that the USO offers.

While I haven't heard any plans yet to resurrect the bones of Bob Hope and bring him here to do a USO show - here are some pictures of the celebrities that entertained KAF last year around Christmas time:

Robin Williams and Lewis Black!

And some others! Some USO crew pose with the USO Holiday Tour as it came through KAF last year.

To learn more about the KAF USO, visit the USO Kandahar Facebook page, where I stole most of the pictures for this post. I'll leave you now with the much-anticipated (I'm sure) pictures of the movie theater at the USO headquarters.

All the seats are La-Z-Boys!

I watched Death Race last Saturday.