When it came to being a patriot, Toby Keith did more than talk the talk… the Big Dog Daddy walked the walk.
Of course, he released a number of patriotic songs, particularly after the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, with hits like “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue,” “American Soldier,” “American Ride,” and more, but the country music icon also put himself in harm’s way on numerous occasions with USO Tours to the Middle East.
Over the course of his legendary career, Toby performed for more than 250,000 troops in 17 different countries, which includes Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Cuba, Djibouti, Guam, Kyrgyzstan and more.
But for all the times we went overseas to perform for our brave service men and women, he refused to allow his daughter Krystal to tag along with him… even when she became a country music singer herself.
She says it was a hard line that he refused to cross:
“I begged to go, but it was such a dangerous thing. He went into, like, dad mode. He was like, ‘No, no, this is really important work I’m going to do, and no, my daughter is not – It’s not something where … I’m going to put you in danger so you can go experience this.'”
Then as I became an artist, I was like, ‘Hey, I want to go do those things,’ and he still, as much as it meant to him, and he knew how important it was for him, he was still like, ‘Hard pass on my daughter going to Afghanistan right now,’ because he had been shot. I mean, his helicopters had been shot at. He had been in the middle of shows when mortar fire came down.
One of the instances she is referring to occurred in 2008 when Toby was performing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Incoming motor fire forced Toby and over 2 thousand military memebers to take cover in a bunker for over an hour. And here’s the kicker, once the threat was over, Toby went right back to performing. No calling it a day, no saying that it was “too dangerous” to continue on… he just went right back to work.
And it never stopped him from coming back.
“He loved the USO tours, and I wish that I would have been able to go on some of those. I did spend time on tour with him. I opened for him from the time I was 14 on. I did the anthem. Anytime I’d go out on tour with him, I’d be like, ‘Hey, can I sing tonight?’ He’d be like, ‘Sure, you can go do the anthem.”
Here’s the moment the sirens went off while Toby was performing on stage in 2008:
The two-hour “Toby Keith: American Idol” tribute concert, which was performed on July 29th of this year, is set to air this coming Wednesday, August 28th on NBC, featuring touching performances by Carrie Underwood, Jelly Roll, Eric Church, Lainey Wilson and more.
Toby Keith Recalls Being Shot At
In conversation with Bob Stoops shortly before he died, Bob asked if the story about Keith’s helicopter getting shot at was true, and the “Big Dog Daddy” put it like this:
“Yeah, and the reason we didn’t…we don’t really talk about it very much because we want people to go over there, you know? We don’t want to discourage anyone from going.
In 240 shows, when you are leaving fire bases and stuff, you’re just in a military helicopter. Nothing big, no RPGs or nothing, but small arms fire and stuff like that coming in and out.”
Classic Toby Keith – playing down the fact that he was possibly in danger just so other artists don’t get scared away from going overseas. Keith immediately went into a specific example of his helicopter taking fire, saying:
“We came out of Mosul east and we were headed to Mosul west, and there are probably 3 million people there I think. So we were going to play the east side, then fly to the west side.
And we were flying sideways, and I’m looking (at the captain) like ‘Why the hell are we flying sideways?’ He had the headset on, I didn’t, so then we straighten back up, and he held his finger up and said ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.'”
However, he trusted the service members he was with, and once they got to their destination, the captain told Keith what had happened, and the late great country star had the perfect response:
“He said we had come under small arms fire as we were leaving and I was like ‘Would have been nice to give a cowboy a shotgun or something.’ It was…they’re going to take care of you when you go over there. You’re in the best hands.
First two or three years, I didn’t go down range. I just played the Big Green zones and everybody can do that…but as the years progressed and I started to trust them, they’re like ‘You want to go down range?’ And I was like ‘Hell yeah, let’s go.'”
Stories like that just make you realize how huge of a loss Toby Keith was. He was truly passionate about helping and serving others… even if it meant risking his own life.
You can view Stoops and Keith’s full conversation below:
Toby Keith was one of a kind… RIP Big Dog.
