JBL was a special guest on WWE’s The Bump last week and went into detail about being apart of WWE’s Tribute To The Troops event. This comes shortly after WWE announced that Tribute To The Troops would be returning this year on December 6.
Back in the day, WWE superstars would actually travel overseas to put on a show for our troops. More recently, they have been traveling to different bases within the United States to put on shows. JBL spoke about being apart of the event by saying, “I’ve gone to Afghanistan – I think it was the first civilian group to go after the invasion. After that next year, they said, ‘How about you go back with some WWE Superstars. We went back but to Southern Iraq in the summer, and it was unbelievably hot. We were on one of the busses, and I grew up watching the ‘Bob Hope USO Shows.’ I always thought that it would be cool to do something like that.”
While JBL admitted how cool it was to be apart of this event, he wasn’t shy from saying that he felt unsafe doing this. JBL said, “I was over in Afghanistan, and there was a blackout everywhere. We were still getting mortared all over the place; it was a real, real warzone. There were times during the surge where it was calm, and there were places that were relatively safe. When I first went over there, I didn’t feel safe at all. I met some wonderful Special Forces Soldiers from our country and from around the world. You could hear the mortars at night, and it was a complete blackout. It was probably the most incredible thing that I’ve ever done.”
JBL ended the conversation by saying, “The growth, to me, is something that’s a feeling in our country, which I think is important. These guys are heroes. They do their part and we need to do ours.”
Thanks to Wrestling Inc. for providing transcriptions.
