JBL Recalls Being Ribbed By Soldiers During First WWE Tribute To The Troops Tour

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, JBL talked about his experience with the first WWE Tribute to the Troops in 2003 and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On his experience with the first Tribute to the Troops and challenges: “I’ll tell you this funny story from the first tour. So the first tour we’ve been over in Afghanistan, this was like — we were the first civilians to go over there from my understanding. And we had been out all day. And you greet soldiers all day and man, I come in, I’m so tired. Especially in Afghanistan, it was dirty. And that is a rotten place. And I would say no offense, but you can take offense all you want. Afghanistan sucks. And I come back in and all the beds have been full in one place. So I’m in a room by myself. And there’s about 20 or 30 bunks out. I’m the only one in that whole hall by myself, because I’m the last one to come in from visiting the troops. And my stuff is so dirty that I just take it all off. So literally, I’m just like, take it all off, put it beside my bag. It’s just a mess, how bad it is. I can tell you some stories that are horrific about the air quality over there, because what are some of the things that happened. Horrible.

“So I took all my stuff off and hopped in the bed. It’s not two hours, I gotta go the bathroom. And so I get up, and it’s lights out because you’re getting mortared. And so you had to have like a red penlight to go around. You didn’t have a white light, because if they saw a white light, they would shoot mortars at it. So you had a little red pen light which I guess, obviously can’t pick up as well. So I’ve got this little light, I can’t find it. So I’m going along the wall, and I’ve got to go to the bathroom. ‘You got to be kidding me.’ Well, there’s not a bathroom in the tent, I’ve gotta to the latrine. So I’m just sitting there like, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ So I’m trying to find the wall, I finally find the door but I don’t find the light yet. So I’m like, ‘I gotta go.’ We’re in a war zone, so it doesn’t matter where I’m going, really. It’s a war zone. I open up the door, and I just step off on the porch. I’m butt naked, and I’m going to the bathroom. I think, ‘Oh, thank God, thank God, I made it. I made it.’ Right then, two spotlights hit me, because they saw the sound. So now, now I’m standing there. It’s freaking cold. I’m standing there butt naked, going to the bathroom, and then spotlights won’t turn off me. So I’m like — because they’re ribbing me at this point, like the soldiers are ribbing me. So I’m standing there, and you can hear them laughing. And I’m just sitting there peeing while these guys are like, with the spotlights on me, and they wouldn’t turn them off. It was absolutely tremendous.”

On whether they needed to recruit talent to go over to Iraq: “Not overtly. I mean, people knew I was going over there. I think I had a torn bicep at the time, so I was doing some stuff for Vince around the world and just promotional [stuff]. I went around for one of the Xbox[es], and I think that was during the timeframe. So, I was not involved a lot with the day-to-day wrestling. I say ‘involved’ as far as being a talent. I think that was during the time. But now obviously, when I came back, you know, everybody wanted to know about the trip.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle With an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.