Entertaining Australian troops at war in Afghanistan and Iraq

This article examines the Australian forces concert tours during the War on Terror in the Middle East area of operations. From 2001 members of the Australian Defence Force were deployed to the Middle East for service in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. Following the tradition established in earlier conflicts both by Australian and American performers, Australian artists entertained troops in a series of live concert performances. Despite the prevalence of alternatives such as easily accessible online forms of entertainment and DVDs, the practice of military concert tour entertainment has survived and appears to show little sign of redundancy. For the troops, the experience could provide a break from routine, stress, and boredom, as well as the opportunity to reconnect with the world they had left behind. However, these tours were far more significant for the civilian entertainers. Performing in the Middle East could be an exhilarating and in some cases a life changing event. Apart from being physically dangerous, participation could potentially harm or enhance an entertainer's reputation at home due to the highly politicised responses to the conflict. Most significantly, touring entertainers briefly experienced something unfamiliar to most people in contemporary developed societies-the experience of being in a war. Richard Gehrmann is a Senior Lecturer in Humanities and Communication at the University of Southern Queensland. His research interests include war and memory, and he served as an Australian Army reservist in Iraq in 2006-07, and in southern Afghanistan in 2008-09.