Mark Wills and Darryl Worley meet U.S. troops in Iraq.
Photography courtesy of Mark Wills and Splash! Public Relations

Most of us - Country Music stars included - are used to celebrating the holidays in the usual rush of shopping, parades and music among friends and family. But Mark Wills and Darryl Worley spent their last Yuletide in a decidedly un-Christmas-y environment. Wills and Worley joined comedian Al Franken, actress Karri Turner (who plays Lt. Harriet Simpson on CBS Television's "JAG,") and others on "The Hope and Freedom Tour 2003" USO Tour, led by the Army's Sergeant Major Jack L. Tilley, entertaining U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. Although the entertainers were there for just ten days, Wills reports he came away from the experience profoundly changed. Click here for more of this story and more photos...