What It’s Like Touring Afghanistan, Doing Comedy For The Troops

We’ve teamed up with Heineken to introduce you to some men and women who have chosen to go beyond their borders, challenge the status quo, say ‘why not?’ instead of ‘it can’t be done’ — and as a result have made the world a more interesting place for the rest of us. For more people worth watching, head here.

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The first time I saw Nick Cody do comedy was at Just For Laughs, the massive live comedy event held once a year at the Sydney Opera House.

His style is incredibly genial, never gruff (despite his lumberjack-like beard and frame), and very quick-witted. And about halfway through his set, after riffing extensively on the merits of owning a bird that can mimic the way you speak, he began talking about Afghanistan.

You might not know this, but every so often, Australia sends various entertainers across the world to do something nice for our troops. Somehow, last year, Nick landed in the thick of it — and the meat of his set, to a rapt audience, was about his time spent doing stand-up in a warzone. An actual, literal warzone.

I sat down with Nick and threw some of my more burning questions at him regarding one of the boldest and weirdest things a comedian — or any performer — can do.

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How and why did you end up going?

I was put forward for the gigs by fellow comedians, Lehmo and Justin Hamilton. After I’d been accepted, I had to pass some medical and dental examinations and then I just sat around shitting myself for a couple of months.

I went for a few reasons. Firstly, the opportunity to perform in a warzone isn’t one that pops up very often. Secondly, I come from a family that has had a lot of ex-military in it: Australian and British Army, Air Force and Navy members. I thought it would be a nice expression of gratitude to go over and entertain people that risk their lives to do a job that a lot of others can’t.

What did you expect from Afghanistan, and how did the reality measure up? 

In hindsight, what I expected was so overblown. I really pictured us all trying to do a gig amongst quite a lot of chaos. Constant gunfire and rocket attacks. Ha! Fortunately, most of those thoughts were shot down (poor choice of words) before we even landed. We were told how large the bases were, how frequent the rocket attacks on the bases were (some far less than others, which was nice), and how miniscule the chances were of us getting harmed at all. No Australian entertainer has ever died performing for the troops. The Lieutenant Colonel from the Army who was in charge of us put it really well: “Nick, picture walking down King Street in Newtown by yourself at 2am on a Saturday night. That can be quite a dangerous situation for a young bloke. Now picture being on King Street at 2am on a Saturday night, with a few thousand highly trained soldiers who would put their life before yours to make sure you got out of there safely. It’s much safer being here with us than being alone on King Street.”

While they do get RPG (rocket propelled grenades) shot at some of the bases, we were lucky enough to avoid any. The safety procedures were constantly drilled into us from the moment we landed at the Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE, which is where the Australian troops land to touch-up particular skills before heading into Afghanistan.

I expected the crowd to be made up of a lot more Alpha, “OORAH!” yelling types. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. The troops I met were highly professional, humble and extremely grateful that we had come over. I was on the tour with Aussie hip hop group Bliss N Eso, as well as another band and comedian. The shows went off! At the base in Tarin Kowt (which is the capital of the Uruzgan Province), there were close to 1000 troops, all armed and in uniform, absolutely loving it.

Before and after every show we had Army, Navy, Air Force and Special Forces members all trying to show us around their particular areas on the bases, and explain what jobs they were doing over there. It was such an amazing experience. 

What are the challenges doing comedy material for people in such a horrifying situation?

Oddly enough, making light of the crazy shit they face everyday seemed to be a thing that they enjoyed. The bits that didn’t go over well at the first two gigs was material that usually went great back at home. Material about me not wanting to get married or not wanting to have kids was met with a bit of a negative response. When I got off stage after the first gig, one of the boys came up to me and said, “Mate, that not wanting a family stuff is hilarious but you might want to remember that some of these guys and girls haven’t seen their partners and kids for up to eight months.”

Usually, I’d argue a point with an audience member — but if that audience member is missing their family while they are being shot at in the desert of a foreign land, I let it slide.

What’s the single most intense thing that happened to you while you were over there?

A member of the Army in his early 20s came over to me after the show in Kandahar. He was a huge unit from the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne. He had been working to set up a FOB (Forward Operating Base) over the last few months, and was in gun battles most days. Back at home, he’d been studying at university and met some guys who had previously been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. He thought that it wasn’t fair for him to enjoy everything Australia gives him, without giving something back. He had been away for over six months and got emotional about my stand-up bits that contained particular Melbourne references (The Corner Hotel, drink riding in North Melbourne, etcetera), because he missed home so much.

We had a long chat, then he got the boys to show me a fully functional minigun, and we had a couple of awful-tasting, non alcoholic beers. Alcohol is banned on the bases there. That was pretty intense, actually.

Would you go again?

In a heartbeat.

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Nick Cody is performing his new show, ‘Beard Game Strong‘, at the Comedy Festivals in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. He’s also on Twitter.

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Paul Verhoeven is a presenter on Triple J, and tweets from @PaulVerhoeven

All images courtesy of Nick Cody.