PORT TOWNSEND — Instead of a stage, there was sand. Instead of spotlights, there were palm trees. And the audience was holding automatic weapons.
But they were the best audience Martha Krabill has ever performed for.
“We have never gotten a reaction like we had in Iraq,” said Krabill. “We got a standing ovation pretty much after every song. They loved it all.”
Port Townsend’s answer to Bob Hope, Krabill, 20, is the singing paratrooper who joined the 82nd Airborne after graduating from Port Townsend High School two years ago.
She was first assigned to the kitchen as a cook, but when the brass discovered her singing talent, she was transferred to the division’s All American Band.
The band was sent to Iraq in December to entertain the troops before Christmas.
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The rest of the story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News.