Sorry, David, you got bumped for Dean’s latest FB post, which mentions NEW SETLIST and HIS VOICE SOUNDING “REALLY GREAT” (and which “Hero” song do they mean? Mariah Carey’s? Enrique’s? hmm)

His stripes make it look like they’ve just taken him prisoner… the most upbeat prisoner ever, lol.

Today was our last day in Afghanistan. We started by going around to some of the places where soldiers were working in the Bagram Air Base and probably wouldn’t get a chance to come to our show. We did little “mini-shows” for them where Dan told a story, Jason did some funny bits and David sang a song and I accompanied on guitar. They seemed to really appreciate it since they are the “behind the scenes people” with loading and maintenance, etc on 24 hour shifts and are often forgotten.

We also got a chance to tour the airfield. We saw A-10s and F-16s (fighter planes) and got great information about them and what they can do. We saw a few take-off as well. They are LOUD! There were a couple of Air Guard units that are currently based here out of Kansas and Alabama. They are just “regular guys” with normal jobs, but are also in the guard and they got deployed. They were really nice to us and seemed very appreciative that we had taken the time to come to them. They are going out on missions every day.

We did our biggest show so far in the “Clam Shell” in the evening. Once again we performed in a giant tent with winds howling outside and blowing the canvas on the tent around. The sound was pretty “echoie” since it was a large space with a cement floor. They use it as a full court basketball court as well as other things. We had a private dinner with the two base generals. They were very gracious. Military leaders all have their own special coin created. When someone offers exceptional service, the leader will sometimes “coin” the person. They do this by placing the coin in their palm and then shaking your hand, passing the coin to you. We have been “coined” at nearly all of the places we have performed. So I have a very cool collection of coins to bring home as souvenirs.

The show was probably our best so far. The audience was great. They were very responsive, laughed and seemed to really enjoy it. The show clicked along really well. We changed things up a bit and David and I started with two songs we hadn’t done so far; “Stand by Me” and “Fields of Gold”. The other songs we did were “Crush”, “Imagine”, “Hero”, “Everybody Hurts”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and he did “Bring Him Home” as an encore. His voice sounded really great in the echoing “Clam shell”. Jason was really funny. Dan’s stories clicked and all and all we felt it was a great way to end our tour of Afghanistan. When “Vertical Horizons” was here on July 4th there were a couple of incoming mortars that hit nearby in the middle of their show so everyone had to hit the ground with their hands over their head until the “all clear” was given after several minutes and they were able to finish their show. Unfortunately we didn’t have that kind of excitement this time! haha

More pics from Dean HERE.

Click twitpics below to enlarge.

***************

(You knew that was coming, right? 🙂 )

MORE BREAKING NEWS!!!! DAVID ACTUALLY BLOGGED!!!! (oh and I got my body-armour pic wish! 🙂 🙂 🙂

“I don’t think that’s how you properly salute, but oh well haha. We have to wear the body armor sometimes when we travel from one base to another on military aircraft here in Afghanistan.”

Hey everyone,

I have written a letter to my family and friends, but I decided that I should share it with all of you as well:

First off, I am sorry that I can never write less than an essay and that my emails are always so long! But please bear with me and my imperfections with this one.

I wanted to write to all of you seeing as this last week has been quite incredible for me. Right now I am writing this to you as blasting winds full of dust attack my face and my eyes (I’m outside to have some time to myself). I am currently in Afghanistan, and as I don’t know when I will ever be here again I would like to take the time to write to you under interesting circumstances.

What am I doing here? I was invited by a man named Dan Clark. He is a world renown speaker who is the main contributor to the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. He has spoken many, many times to the troops all over the world. We are joined by a professional impersonator/comedian named Jason Hewlett (he’s hilarious), and my voice trainer Dean Kaelin (accompanying me on the piano and guitar, and performing himself a number) to do a military tour. It is a tour with the focus to inspire and give an uplifting message to the troops as we entertain.

July 8th we left for the Middle East. We began in the country of Bahrain– a country I had never even heard of before. Afterwards we went to Kuwait. It was amazing to see how empty it is here terrain-wise: sand, sun, dust, and desert. However, due to oil and gas these are very wealthy countries. We visited an Islamic mosque and I was amazed to see that they believe in prophets, and even believe in Jesus Christ… As a prophet of God; not as the Only Begotten, yet they believe that He will come again. It is Ramadan here which is the month of fasting, where they cannot eat or drink from sunrise until sunset. We cannot eat or drink in front of them, and have to keep long-sleeve shirts and pants when in public Muslim-eye to not offend their traditions.

Anyway, this is a military tour, not a desert tourist trip. I wanted to express my love for these military men and women. Here in Afghanistan– along with in Iraq–they are in combat and there are attacks going on. I was surprised at the friendships and the respect the local people have with and for the troops, as the reason why we have been in these countries is to protect these people from opposing groups who seek for power and are extremists and terrorists trying to overtake the countries. We are now making transitions to let the Afghan military take charge of defending their own country so that they may strengthen their own sense of duty and value those rights and liberties more by taking the lead themselves.

We have met so many fathers who have yet to meet their newborn babies in person; they are out in this blazing heat of 100-140 degrees day to day (and wow it feels like a hair-dryer blowing in your face!). We have seen and felt their appreciation for us being here as we “come out of our way” to meet with them, perform for them, and let them know we love them — it is the LEAST we can do!! It is amazing to have them come up and say, “you don’t know how much this means to us. Thank you for coming to see us and break the routine. You bring a piece of home.”

These are people who learn what the word “duty” means. They literally put their lives on the line with rockets being shot at the bases, mines exploding their and civilians’ paths, and suicide bombers coming at them. It is real, but they do it because of their duty to our families and to our country, and to their duty to protecting countries and people who cannot do it alone. How grateful I am for their dedication and for them being awakened to their duty.

I hope the next time you see one of these service men and women, you think of their commitment that they have to this duty: to protecting our amazing and beautiful country where we have freedom, and working to help others have freedom as well. We take what we have for granted– whether- we go to the air-conditioned malls, or sit at our peaceful homes bored. Let us think twice about our liberty that we have in this promised land, and how God has truly blessed us. During this trip we are also getting to do some special faith-based events that we call firesides. It has been a wonderful bonus to the trip.

We have one more week of shows, and I will try and give you another (shorter) update as we come to a close.

I hope you are all well!

David

*SOBS* … no idea why, it just got to me for some reason… It’s been great hearing about the tour through Jason, Dan and Dean’s eyes but I think what we were all waiting on the edge of our seats for was DAVID’s take on things. I know I was…. Please go see the rest of his pics & leave a comment, guys, HERE!

What do you guys think??? Is he not Everything & More David than ever? Does he not make you even more uber-proud to be his fan?? Are you not happy I made that wish for a body-armour pic?? 🙂

(Which is also on D’s Instagram btw)

*************

Imagine needs to come first… as the lovely Ms. B. commented on the last thread, “In the Imagine world, nobody would be shot at or shot down.” … Amen to that, my friend!

Dean’s latest FB post:

Ok, today was much more peaceful. I didn’t mean to make everyone nervous with my last post. We actually feel very safe here. The soldiers are doing a great job and we are exclusively on bases throughout our tour. However, we are in a war zone and things are constantly happening. Troops go out on missions daily either by air or on ground.

We flew on a C-130 plane to Jalalabad which is fairly close to the border with Pakistan. It was probably collectively our favorite day on the tour thus far. The troops were super happy to see us. They gave us a great tour of their base, which was like a small village. The perimeter of this camp was 3.5 miles. The biggest problem here is with IEDs, which are the hidden explosives that insurgents hide in the ground. There is a group of brave young men that go out frequently to check for and dig up these explosives before they can hurt anyone. There is amazing equipment that helps them be able to do it with relative safety. There is tons of high-tech stuff as well.

This is also a big helicopter air base and we got a great tour about the blackhawk and apache helicopters. We also visited the med station. There were several huge David Archuleta fans there. It was really fun. We performed a mini-concert for them since they were working and would not be available to come to the show. The show was in the camp chapel. There was a huge U.S. flag as our backdrop so it looked really cool.

The terrain was much different here; quite a bit of water (lakes, rivers) and lower elevation (900 feet), so it was hot and humid. Yesterday we were really high (7600 feet), and Bagram is 4500 feet).

At the end of the day we flew back to Bagram on a Chinook helicopter again. No excitement in the flights today! Here are a few pictures.

Thank you, Dean!!!

Maybe David needs a tutorial on “camouflage”? 🙂

Nice try, D… we see you!

More here.

Who comes into the war zone to perform for us? @DavidArchie What a swell guy. pic.twitter.com/FaUcob05TH

— Kyyle (@bowmankyle61) July 18, 2014

P.S.
And you know I’m going to post any possible Canadian connection to David, right? lol Dapo Torimiro posted this on FB — congrats to Toronto’s Nasri Atweh, lead singer of Magic!:

#tbt Dapo, David Archuleta, and Nasri (Magic!) at DMP_Studio. Congrats to Nasri and his group Magic! on scoring their first #1 single “Rude” on iTunes today!! #singer #songwriter #nasri #magic #rude #dapo #davidarchuleta #songwriting — with Dapo Torimiro, David Archuleta, Lisa Murray and Nasri Atweh.

And here are the tweets from Nasri (back when he was with The Messengers) from their songwriting session slash Mario Kart game, back in 2010 (thanks, BeckyFOD!):

Anywayyyys, thought this was cool….

P.P.S.

From the lovely and amazing Abrra, from the comments on the last thread:

From Abrra’s Candy Jar
I took the snippets of David singing Imagine from Dan Clark’s video and put them in MP3 format.

Imagine snippet.mp3
Audio (.MP3)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zk8p2pjsammf2bq/Imagine+snippet.mp3

I made ringtones from BHH for iPhone and Andriod. Find them in the main Middle East folder.
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/666tvd9b6256v/Middle_East_Shows