In December of 2004 the Vandals were invited for the first time in our long career to perform for members of the United States Armed Forces. We were asked to go to Iraq and Kuwait over Christmas and New Years to try to spread holiday cheer to men and women far way from their families fighting a very dangerous war.

It was a strange request because the war is very controversial, but we were flattered that the soldiers wanted us to play and we knew that they usually only got to see country bands over there so we went. Josh had some previous commitments so we enlisted our good friend Byron McMackin from Pennywise on the drums and we shipped out on what turned out to be an extremely rewarding experience.

Being pretty much just a silly punk rock band singing primarily about haircuts, food, diarrhea, and such, we took no position on the war itself. We are not spokespeople for or employees of the U.S. Government. We thought we were lucky to be invited into the war zone to perform for soldiers, contractors, and local people so we just went to play our music and hope that it made people happy.

Our visit created a lot of interest and controversy in the music scene all over the world. This site is dedicated to our first and future trips to military outposts. Hopefully you will be able to see what it was like for us over there and it will answer your questions about our experience.

Please visit the links page if you would like to learn how you can help or contact American soldiers in your own way. If you live in the USA, these are your neighbors, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. We found it very rewarding to help and get to know them. You don't have to support the war to do something nice for them.

For foreign visitors to this site, we have found that it is difficult for non-Americans to understand that the USA has a long tradition of providing entertainment and welfare to it's soldiers on a non political non judgmental basis no matter where they are stationed. Our entire country comes together on this issue. On our recent tour of Europe and Greece, misguided protests, boycotts, and threats of brutal violence against us taught us this will probably never be understood over seas, but please try.