On Wisconsin!

My first tour to Afghanistan in 2005, I had an extremely bare section of a plywood hut that I shared with about 6 other people. I needed to decorate and decided nothing would be more fitting than University of Wisconsin Badgers flag.

This flag has been with me ever since. All over the US as I changed station and to every deployment I've been on since I bought it. It's currently on it's third tour of duty.

And it's even better now than ever.

The USO does many tours, from bands and comedy acts, to celebrities and athletes. It's a great organization and does great things to build troop morale to Soldiers separated from their families and loved ones.

Today, a group of NFL players came to our base to do a meet and greet and sign autographs for fans. Among those that stopped by were Champ Bailey and Von Miller from the Denver Broncos and J.J. Watt from the Houston Texans.

Enter my Badgers flag.

Unfortunately, I was unable to make the meet and greet time do to my work hours, but a friend from another shop took it with him (he's a die hard Broncos fan born and raised in Colorado), and he took my flag with for J.J. Watt to sign. He told me J.J. was quite surprised when he pulled out a UW flag to sign.

For those of you that don't know, J.J. is a Wisconsin native and played for the Badgers in 2009 and 2010 before entering the NFL draft before his senior year and going in the first round to the Houston Texans.

Needless to say, I'm a bit sad I wasn't able to go and have it signed myself, but still ecstatic that I'm lucky enough to have his John Hancock on my Badgers banner.

On Wisconsin!