Conversation: Mike Wallace

Mike Wallace took a week at the opening of the winter holiday season to participate in a United Service Organizations (USO) tour with a select group of military, athletic and entertainment celebrities visiting a number of military installations at a variety of locations.

When he returned, less than a week before Christmas, he talked by phone with NASCAR.com's Dave Rodman to discuss the trip, including its impact on his perception of the war on terrorism, life with Robin Williams and traveling with high military officials.

It looked like, from the pictures we've seen, that you enjoyed yourself quite a bit on this trip. Was that the case?

Mike Wallace: Dude, you have no idea how much of a good time I had. It was absolutely the trip of a lifetime, is the simplest way to describe it. One of the reasons, first of all, was the purpose that we were going there for, for the troops.

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Next, when we left Andrews Air Force Base, we were flying on what they call Air Force Two, which is the airplane that the Vice President flies on. It had United States of America down the side, and all the insignias on it.

Then, meeting General (Richard) Myers, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking military officer in the country, and not only meeting Robin Williams, but actually spending as much time with him as I did, was great.

Kurt Angle from the WWE (professional wrestler) was a great guy -- a really nice guy who'd won a Gold Medal at the 1996 Olympics and Leeann Tweeden with the Best Damn Sports Show -- it was just great and a phenomenally great time to do everything that we did.

Overall, what was your impression of the trip, and is it a big deal for athletes like you and Kurt and Jason Giambi, and entertainers to go over there and visit with the troops?

Mike Wallace: It really is a big deal. Giambi didn't end up going on the trip (as planned) and Leeann ended up leaving a couple days into it, but Kurt and Robin and I did the whole thing.

	Robin Williams entertains the troops Credit: AP

The one big thing that really came out of that visit was that there was a value to that for the men and women serving over there. It was a big enthusiasm deal for them, and pretty meaningful. It means so much to the troops that we showed up there.

The word I got from everyone and the false impression that they have over there is that everyone in the United States has forgotten that there's a war going on.

They don't think anybody's thinking about them. That was one of the big questions, people asking 'Is there anything on the news about us over there?' 'Are they hearing about the war?' and all that.

We entertained about 25,000 troops through our stops and the masses all came across the stage and we took photos with them all and everything else and all they could say was 'thanks -- thanks for spending the time and coming by and just thinking about us.'

It is a huge deal for our troops to know that they are being supported. It's kind of like whether you support the war or you're against the war, at least support the troops (because) that means so much to them.

Besides the guys that have signed up for the military, there are so many reserve and National Guard units over there that have been taken away from their jobs and planted out in the middle of what I call nowhere, helping to defend their country.

While you were there, were you near any live rounds, did you hear anything go off and what was the biggest indication you had that you were actually in a war zone?

Mike Wallace: When we landed at Baghdad International Airport, where the U.S. military has its major formation in Baghdad, it's really hard to describe.

When we got off this airplane, every soldier had a rifle, a machine gun, rocket launchers hanging on their backs -- they're in Humvees with 50-caliber machine guns mounted on top of them. And there's such a massive amount of traffic, with convoys going into Baghdad.

	Mike Wallace

The airport you could tell had been blown to heck and now they're rebuilding it to give it back to the Iraqis, but that was what really showed me that there was a war. We didn't take any live rounds of ammunition but we did see a KC-130 (airplane) on an approach into Baghdad blowing flares and doing a tactical maneuver to avoid a possible missile strike.

But we didn't see any explosions or even hear any. I personally felt very safe, with General Myers and all his security staff. They were good enough to assign, I guess there's no better way to say it, but a personal bodyguard to each one of the guests.

When I say a personal bodyguard, I mean specially trained agents with pistols on their legs and machine guns strapped to their chests. They went with us everywhere we went, because of the general being with us.

We went in convoys that made evasive maneuvers and we never sat still. As soon as the general was ready to roll, we rolled. We never stopped and we never sat on the runway. What I mean is the airplane was running when we boarded it and as soon as he got on, the door shut and we were rolling.

They do that because the simple fact is, he was a big target over there. But they were great and it proved why our country is such the strong military force that it is, because it was very programmed, very methodical and they've got some very cool toys, as I told them.

It sounds like you didn't have a "most nervous" moment?

Mike Wallace: No, we didn't. We could tell that there was a war that had been in place, but as far as did we see any form of combat, no, I would be telling a story.

We were all trying to dream up a story that would be good to tell everybody, but we couldn't come up with one.

What was the most poignant, or emotionally touching thing that happened while you were there?

Mike Wallace: There were multitudes of things that happened to me on the trip that were memorable to me, personally.

I think the first thing would be meeting the troops and standing there, eye to eye, and them looking you right in the face and saying 'Thank you very much for coming over here -- we didn't think anybody would be thinking about us.'

To see that and to just to see how excited three- to four-thousand people at a time get over throwing t-shirts and hats. There's a huge NASCAR contingent over there. People know NASCAR racing and of course; they're from the States so they should know it.

Did they have any opinions on racing?

Mike Wallace: The one big thing I will relay is that nobody wants the (proposed) playoff system (for 2004). They said, 'You got any input? No playoffs, we don't want any of that crap.'

What was your itinerary like?

Mike Wallace: Every day was exciting to me because every day was different. We flew into Shannon, Ireland and refueled. That was kind of a joke because at Andrews there was snow and ice on the ground and it got up into a wheel well and froze a wheel up and we had a tire explosion on landing.

It was no big deal, but they had to change the tire after we landed and they were saying how slow they were at changing it compared to our NASCAR pit stops.

We left Ireland and flew into Kuwait, to the VIP terminal that kind of looks like a little palace. Then we went to Baghdad and back to Kuwait. Tuesday night was a real memorable moment of the trip when we had the honor of meeting the royal family of Kuwait, and hanging out at their palace for about three hours.

You know how small the world is when we could talk about racing. They're familiar with it and they know what we do and one of the family members owns a home in Daytona Beach (Florida).

The next day we went back to Iraq, to Mosul and Bilad and Kirkuk. The cool part about Bilad is that it was a huge turnout of people, and the guy that used to fly my plane, Jerry Goad, had a brother that was a high ranking officer that was stationed in Bilad.

So when I had my turn on the stage, I figured what was the chance of finding any one person, but I said, 'Before I start anything, I want to know if anyone knows Jeb Goad?' When I was done with my deal fifteen minutes later one of his guys came over and said he was on the base, was on his way over and would be there in a few minutes.

So it was so ironic that halfway around the world I would find a guy that I was trying to find.

When we left there, we went to Afghanistan the next day and I met the best friend of the son of a guy I raced against when I won the Winston Racing Series championship in 1990. It was so unique how you could meet somebody that far across the world.

One of the most memorable things was in Afghanistan. You hear so much about Osama bin Laden, but to have someone walk up to you and hand you a 'Wanted, dead or alive' poster with a $25 million reward on it -- you just say, 'Wow, this is for real.'

Afghanistan was not a very nice country. Kuwait was nice, and the parts of Baghdad I saw appeared to have been nice, before the war. We flew into Bahrain, which was a very nice, modern country in all aspects.

It was probably the nicest place that we visited and Bahrain is actually building a Formula One track and they're supposed to have a F1 race there this coming year.

Friday morning we got on two huge Navy helicopters and flew out to the U.S.S. Enterprise, which was docked out in the middle of the Persian Gulf. We flew back and then went to Djibouti, Africa.

We did a show there that night and got back on Air Force Two and flew to Brussels, Belgium, to refuel. From there, it was a nine-hour flight back to Andrews Air Force Base.

Did anything in your perspective change on the trip? Did what you think you were going to see, get changed by the reality of the trip?

Mike Wallace: The reality that there's a real war going on, changed. The reality that there are real soldiers in these countries that are less than desirable to be in, (such as) Afghanistan and Africa.

These are United States citizens that are over there defending our country. We all know that and we all hear that, but it's like going to a race -- unless you see it firsthand, it doesn't mean that much.

But (now) I've seen it. My respect for the military has grown immensely over the years but it continues to grow every time I get to do any type of new event. We as citizens of this country need to really respect our military.

I was really privileged to be on this trip with whom I was with, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his aides. We talked about the military and why we even need to be in these foreign countries.

When they explained why we were there, it makes so much sense and you appreciate things so much more. It kind of simplifies it (because) we can fight those battles on somebody else's soil or we can fight them on our own (ground) someday if we don't stop them over there. And that's what we're doing.

After spending a week with Robin Williams, did you pick up any useful material?

You see him as a comedian and an actor, but he's an extremely nice person away from all that. He's an intelligent individual and I was very surprised at how well versed he was and how much he knew about the world in general.

There was a lot of usable material, but not a lot that we could say on television or radio (laughing). We'd have to do it sometime when we're all in the bar together some night.

But first of all, meeting him and finding out what kind of person he was (was special). Now, here's a superstar you were gonna meet and is he a normal person, is he arrogant, cocky?

He was as nice as possibly could be. I mean, extremely nice to the point of saying, 'Here's my home phone number, here's my wife's name -- call me. Why don't you come to the Tour de France next year with me and watch Lance Armstrong win his sixth?'

He didn't have to do that, but he did. He was extremely hospitable.