Baghdad or Bust!

I had hoped to get away this winter, perhaps to someplace with a lot of sand and sun.

I was thinking more along the lines of Bimini than I was Baghdad, but sometimes the trajectory of time and fate bends in ways you don't expect. I will soon be leaving for Baghdad, Iraq to play trumpet on a series of dates in the Green Zone with a 10-piece dance band based in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Here’s an aerial photograph of Baghdad with the Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport highlighted in red.

So how did all of this come to pass?

I worked with a fine cover band called Groove Alliance from 2001 to 2004. They play a mix of contemporary funk and soul, and horn-driven rhythm and blues from the 1970s. Typical set list would include Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, Stevie Wonder, Sam and Dave, and various other popular music. The band has a fine female vocalist as well, and serves up everything from Aretha Franklin to Alicia Keyes. Check them out at www.groove-alliance.com.

The star of this show is a fantastic male vocalist named Mike Pacheco. Pacheco uses the stage name Mike Green just so audience members have something a bit more convivial than Pacheco to try to remember as they shake their heads in amazement on the ride home saying, “That Mike Green sings his ASS off!”

Still, I'll call him Mike Pacheco rather than Mike Green throughout the life of this blog, because that's the moniker I invoke in my mind's eye when I think of him, and also because I enjoy busting Mike's chops any time I can, so if only to muddy the waters of his branding efforts, Pacheco it is.

Mike has a very rare, preternaturally clear, bell-tone tenor voice. His pitch is impeccable, and he possesses all of the extras that a great lead singer needs: glibness, intelligence, inexhaustible energy, and great humor. He is without question among the top two or three vocalists I’ve ever worked with in my thirty years as a weekend warrior, part-time, semi-professional musician. If it's not obvious already, I'll state it plainly here that I love this guy. He is an inspiring and talented man, and he bites off life in big chunks.

He a conservative Libertarian and I am a liberal Democrat, and we both respect and admire one another’s grasp of the issues, and we often engage in lively and mutually respectful debate, only occasionally allowing the discussion to degrade into hurling epithets like ‘fascist’ and ‘right-wing lunatic,’ or ‘Commie’ and ‘pinko panty-waist’. He refers to me as his ‘favorite lib’, and as I’ve mentioned previously, he is one the people I most admire in this world.

If I were a soldier under his command, I would run into a firefight with no trepidation, because I know that he would have already prepared me as a soldier, assessed the situation as thoroughly as it could be assessed, and made a sober decision that this was the best course of action. I trust him implicitly, and I had no second thoughts whatsoever in accepting his invitation to come to a war zone to play music for the defenders of our flag.

But, being an incredibly talented vocalist only rarely pays the bills; Mike is a major in the US Army, and has to his great honor and credit, served this country in Bosnia and other theaters of war for the past 25 years. His final assignment before retiring with distinction is in Baghdad Iraq, serving as an administrator for the reconstruction team.

Over the course of some karaoke shows or local sing-alongs, I’m not exactly sure, I’ll find out and let you know, an executive from the Kubba Group, a large Iraqi holding company, become suitably enthralled with Mike’s tremendous talent. After discussions with Mike, and some time spent on the Groove Alliance web site, the two began scheming a way to fly the band over to the Green Zone to play a series of dates for embassy staff and brass, American soldiers, and local citizens.

I’ll flesh out the details of the process next week when I’m there, and when I can sit down with Mike and grill him on the process. Here’s a picture of Major Mike Pacheco standing in the doorway of a “rhino” as they are called, a heavily armored military transport vehicle.

I mailed my favorite trumpet out on Monday, and a suitcase full of clothes and accessories on Thursday. All of sudden, this thing feels VERY real to me. I have my passport, a form called 1172, which validates my contract orders to be in Baghdad, along with an official letter of permission. I am picking up my access ID this week, and then I will be officially under contract with ECC, one of the major contractors associated with the reconstruction effort.

I am nervous, but nor fearful in any way. I am excited, and I think I have a right to be a little bit proud of what I am doing. My contribution is of course dwarfed by every soldier putting his or her boots in some very dangerous sand, but I am taking my vacation time for the past eight months of a daily Boston commute to do this, and while it is an incredible opportunity to gain knowledge and empathy with regard to a part of the world I would otherwise never have visited, I still view this as civilian contribution to a national military effort.

Most Americans want to provide aid and comfort to our soldiers, but the way the military is organized, ordinary citizens don’t always have tangible ways to contribute. I have an opportunity to take some kid’s mind off of the terrible risks he or she face each day for a few hours, dancing to a damn good American horn band. I picture a nineteen-year old boy who had no reason to feel a guarantee that he would live through the day dancing the pogo to “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” and that’s a really good thing.

We are also playing to publicize and benefit the Starfish Foundation, an organization that sponsors surgeries and other treatment for injured Iraqi chldren. There is little in this world more compelling than a child who is sick or has been hurt. The worst thing that happened to me as a kid was a broken finger in a dodgeball game. So, I'll do what I can to help spread the word about an organization whose charge it is to help some little girl get shrapnel taken out of her leg, or in worse case, fit her with a prosthetic.

Anyway, we rehearsed on Thursday night, and the band is KILLER. What a fine sax and trombone! Two trumpets on this gig, too. My friend Steve Price is playing lead, and I am taking solos and playing support. The section is going to be first rate. War is hell, but next week at least, you can dance to it.

This is me.

One last photo here. This is where we are playing our last night in Baghdad. It is one of Sadaam Hussein’s (remember him?) reception rooms for Baathist Party officials.

Posted by Chris Elliott at 12:56 PM | Comments (10)