Sports

Billy Goes to Iraq

By Taji Ameen

PHOTOS BY BILLY ROHAN

A few weeks ago Billy Rohan went to Iraq to give some much needed moral support and entertainment to the troops. He was at Camp Woodward in Beijing when some BMX guys invited him to tag along as the sole skater on a trip they were doing called "Bikes Over Baghdad." He came back with photos of dilapidated buildings, palaces, and gigantic biker ramps. I had a chat with Billy about his adventure.

Hi Billy, where did you stay and how did you get around in Iraq?
When we flew in we started off in Kuwait, where one of the main bases within the entire region for the US military is located. Kuwait is super hot. On average, it's about 20 degrees hotter than Iraq. We stayed in military housing, and at first I was picturing tents or something very minimal, but the buildings were actually really nice and air conditioned. Throughout the trip we flew to different places--one of the coolest places we stayed was Saddam’s Palace in Baghdad. He named it "Camp Victory Over America" because we didn’t kick him out of power when he invaded Kuwait, so he chalked it up as a win.

What were the US soldiers like? How was your interaction with them?
The soldiers were super psyched when the shows went down. The guys I was with were bikers so they built huge ramps and did backflips over tanks and hummers. As a skater I could barely even get to the top of these giant ramps. I cruised them a bit, but mainly acted as the hype man. The troops are like regular people, like anyone you see around Williamsburg, Manhattan, or anywhere in New York, they just have a different job that they chose to do. It was really cool to see, because normally you picture soldiers as being super cut guys with a gun and camo, but it's really just their job and they're just people like the rest of us.