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'GIs Of Comedy' Serving America….Jokes

Take a group of combat-tested vets, put them up on stage, let them tell jokes about getting shot in the head, and you have the GIs of Comedy. Its a collection of five guys from different branches. And it’s quite the unique group. Says Thom Tran, a former Army staff sergeant who organized the group: “When we put this tour together it shocked me that, you know, a black guy in the Navy, a Cuban in the Air Force, an Asian in the Army and a white guy in the Corps. I was like all I need is a Muslim in the Coast Guard.”

From the Air Force Times:

Political correctness is clearly not this group’s stock in trade. But Tran, who traded a career in the Army for comedy (he’s also a part-time radio traffic reporter) after being shot in the head in Iraq seven years ago, believes all five have earned the right to say whatever they want on stage.

The fifth G.I. in the troupe, former Army private Tom Irwin, produced the film “25 Days in Iraq,” documenting one of his four comedy tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“These are people who have seen a little more high stakes part of the world. It’s a life experience that results in something a little more than just jokes about airplane food,” says Thomas Lennon, one of the creators of television’s now-ended “Reno 911,” who with his partner, Robert Ben Garant, is producing the group’s shows.

The Vietnamese-born Tran, whose father fought on the American side during the Vietnam War and was imprisoned after the fall of Saigon, even manages to work into the act the day he was wounded in Iraq.

“I don’t know of any other show where there is such funny footage of someone taking a bullet to the head,” says Lennon, who played Lt. Dangle on “Reno 911″ and was the clueless test administrator blackmailed by Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher.” He and Garant are also pitching a television show for the group to Comedy Central.

Since coming together four months ago, the five have played all of LA’s major comedy clubs and will go on a nationwide tour later this year. Eventually they hope to take the act overseas to military installations.

Not that their entire act is made up of military jokes.

Reilly, whose first name really is G, has a funny bit about getting hit by a bus. Irwin can wax on about trying to explain to a 17-year-old how a reel-to-reel tape recorder once worked. C., who says he was always the funny fat kid in school, makes light of his size.

The group, ranging in age from 32 to 52, is as multicultural as the military, with one black member, one Asian, one Hispanic and two white guys.

The full story is here.


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