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Back in 2007 at the height of
the ‘War on Terror’, I joined a group of talented entertainers and spent two
weeks on a whirlwind tour of Australian army bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
tour was run by Forces Entertainment, a division of the Australian Defense
Force that have been sending Aussie performers to entertain our troops since
Vietnam.
The main function of our tour
was to break up the monotony of the dull, daily lives that the soldiers were
living for six months at a time. The men and women we entertained were so
appreciative and so incredibly hospitable. Be traveling all that way, we showed our troops a huge amount of support. Our concerts
helped take their minds off the ordeal of fighting a war halfway across the
world and I was proud to be a part of it.
Our first stop in Afghanistan
was Tarin Kowt, an isolated fighting base in the south of the country and the
base out of which Australian casualties would prove highest. It had a makeshift
kind of feel to it; steel bunk beds inside bare concrete structures, tarp on
the ground and a dining hall with a flapping door that was little more
structured than a tent. The base was surrounded by grey, beautifully misty,
rolling mountains and we were told that amidst those mountains, Taliban
fighters were hiding. During our concert a few hours after we arrived (the back
of a large semi-trailer doubled as our stage) we heard machine gun fire and saw
flares being sent out into the hills. The flares, we were told, were to let the
Taliban fighters know not to cause any trouble that night. (I didn’t realize
there was such a co-operative dialogue!)
My thirty minute set of
feel-good pop songs opened the show and whilst enjoying the masculine attention
of a group of Australian Army engineers, I couldn’t help but feel a great deal
of defiance towards the Taliban fighters that were supposedly hiding in the
hills enjoying our concert. “If you want to attack us,” I thought, “go for it.
Send a rocket in and blow my arm off. I don’t care. We’re doing an important
thing for our men and women and nothing is going to stop us.”
Of course our invincibility
wasn’t guaranteed. Our scheduled concert at Camp Victory in Baghdad a week
later was cancelled due to intelligence warning of an imminent rocket attack.
(Camp Victory was mockingly referred to a few years later as Camp ‘We Spoke Too
Soon’) We scrambled to pack everything away as quickly as possible and take
shelter inside. What amazed me was that after twenty minutes of terrible fear,
probably the greatest fear I’ve ever known, I forgot all about it and got on
with my evening just like everyone else.
With a little bit more
thought and reflection on the nearly paralytic fear I felt the face of real
danger, I realized that if my arm was blown off that night in Baghdad or the
previous week in Tarin Kowt, I would care. Agreeing to take this trip was
patriotic, sure, but had I returned to Australia with one less limb, I would
not be able to take pride or solace in the fact that ‘I did it for my country.’
Not a chance in hell. So the question I found myself asking was how did the
parents of thirty-three-year-old Sergeant Matthew Locke, who was killed a week after
we left Tarin Kowt, how did they cope? Did they take the Australian flag that
was wrapped around their son’s coffin and hang it up with pride on their living
room wall? I’m sure I couldn’t. We read statistics in the paper about deaths at
war and often overlook the significance, because a disconnected number is
difficult to fathom. But I was there. I had just left the base that Sergeant
Locke was serving in—he probably heard me sing. His death had a profound effect
on me and we didn’t even meet.
The biggest thing that struck
me on our trip was the wasted human life. In November 2007, the month I
returned home from our tour, there were already 4,700 U.S. soldiers dead, 4
Australians, 255 British, 14 Dutch. There were an estimated 70,000 Iraqi
civilians dead and 40,000 US medical evacuees—meaning 40,000 men and women with
seriously debilitating injuries including irreversible brain damage and
blindness. There were 10,000 people with grave psychological issues (as well as
countless veteran suicides in each of the subsequent years). If you take a
second to think of just one of those people—just one, selected out of any one
of those categories—if you think of that one person as your father or your
husband, your daughter or your son, then you might find yourself asking, is it
worth it? I may be hugely idealistic, but with a tragic history of so many
millions dead at the hands of war, surely we are smart enough to find a better
way.
***
Alexis Fishman is an
Australian singer and actor who has lived in New York City for the past six
years. She is a graduate of the prestigious Western Australian Academy of Performing
Arts (Hugh Jackman’s alma mater). She is the creator and star of a solo show,
Der Gelbe Stern, which tells
the story of a famous cabaret singer performing her final show in Berlin 1933.
After successful seasons in Australia, Der Gelbe Stern will make its
off-Broadway debut at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in July, 2014. As a
writer, Alexis will be a contributor to “God, Faith and Identity in the Ashes: Perspectives of Children and Grandchildren of
Holocaust Survivors” due to be published by in 2015. She is also completing a Masters
in International Relations through Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia
and due to graduate at the end of 2014. www.alexisfishman.com
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Why is this "The i’Mpossible Project?"
Inspired by Josh Rivedal's book and one-man show The Gospel According to Josh: A 28-Year Gentile Bar Mitzvah. Gospel (non-religious) means "Good News" and Josh's good news is that he's alive, and thriving, able to tell his story and help other people.
On his international tour with his one-man show, he found incredible people who felt voiceless or worthless yet who were outstanding people with important personal stories waiting to be told. These personal stories changed his life and the life of the storyteller for the better.
Josh's one-man show continues through 2015 and beyond and he is looking for people in all walks of life, online and offline, to help give them a voice and share their stories with the world.
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