By the time Toby Keith finished a 25-minute acoustic set Sunday in Mosul, the crowd was so pumped up you might have thought he'd just played a two-hour show at the Tacoma Dome with two encores. The soldiers of the Stryker Brigade weren't watching the clock, however, and they weren't shelling out the $45 to $60 they would have paid to see the country superstar's unabridged honky-tonk act in Tacoma six months ago. It didn't cost these troops from Fort Lewis anything – unless you count the blood, sweat and year away from home. "I've been trying to see him for six years. All it took is for me to go to Iraq and get shot at," said Lt. Raub Nash, 25, of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, known as "Deuce Four." "In college, I was too poor to see him." The wait paid off. Nash and his buddies held up a red-and-white Oklahoma state flag throughout the show and got Keith, a fellow Okie, to autograph it as he was leaving the stage. Capt. Brian Jovag grew up in Kirkland listening to Seattle grunge bands such as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. It's just been the past few years that Jovag, a physical therapist with the brigade's support battalion, has learned to appreciate Keith. "He speaks to the reality of being a soldier and being in the Army," said Jovag, 34, of Tacoma. After giving short performances at two other American bases in Mosul, Keith came to Forward Operating Base Marez and was done before 5:30 p.m., riding out for a short spin around the base in the commander's hatch of a Stryker vehicle.

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