Thanks to a number of sources for pointing this out (Stars and Stripes, Thomas Ricks).
Stephen T. Colbert, after much anticipation, has finally arrived in Iraq to broadcast four episodes of the Colbert Report from Baghdad, courtesy of the USO.
“We’ll have interviews with world leaders, hopefully, world and military leaders [this will include General Odierno], and then of course I want to talk to the men and women on the ground,” Colbert said.
He joked that his trip is an attempt to outdo Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.”
“It’s purely out of his competition of his [Jim] Cramer interview,” Colbert said. “I actually had to go to war zone just to do something more impressive than hammering CNBC.”
In all seriousness, Colbert said he is honored to have been asked to entertain U.S. troops.
“When you get asked to do this, I think you’d be a fool to say no,” Colbert said, notes that he has a flag from the 82nd Airborne Division given to him by a wounded soldier who attended his show.
Colbert said he is “particularly happy” to perform for U.S. troops now that the media has stopped covering them for the most part to focus on the economic crisis.
“Those men and women are sacrificing as much as they ever have; they’re away from their families, their families are losing homes back here, their families are losing jobs back here, and, you know, we’re in a time of change, not much has changed for them yet.
One thing is clear: He needs to brush up on his military jargon.
When asked if would venture outside the wire, he replied: “Are you kidding? Look at me. Of course I’m going outside the wire. What’s that mean?”
One of my fellow pilots actually got a great mention from Colbert on the show sometime in 2006, after he sent Colbert a flag which he had with him in a UH-60 Black Hawk on an actual mission in Afghanistan. The circumstances of the mission played perfectly on the Colbert report, since the mission had the laughable name of “Operation Beef Hammer”. I’m not making that up, either.
All right, I’ll wait for you guys to stop laughing at the innuendo on that one.
Still waiting…
Seriously, who the hell comes up with the names for these missions, anyway? I’d throw in a few less-than-PG comments on the name “Beef Hammer”, but Colbert beat me to them.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Shout Out! - Beef Hammer Flag | ||||
| ||||
No comments:
Post a Comment