Toby Keith was a proud supporter of the United Service Organizations (USO) and performed for more than 250,000 service members stationed across the globe in 18 USO tours during his incredible career.

The “How Do You Like Me Now?!” singer practiced what he preached when it came to his overwhelming sense of patriotism, and he took his job seriously whenever asked to go into an active war zone and lift the spirits of military members. 

Toby’s daughter, Krystal Keith, told Fox News Digital that while her father was eager to let her perform with him on stage, he refused to let her tag along on any of the USO tours.

“I begged to go, but it was such a dangerous thing. He went into, like, dad mode,” Krystal said. “He was like, ‘No, no, this is really important work I’m going to do, and no, my daughter is not – It’s not something where … I’m going to put you in danger so you can go experience this.’”

She added, “Then as I became an artist, I was like, ‘Hey, I want to go do those things,’ and he still, as much as it meant to him, and he knew how important it was for him, he was still like, ‘Hard pass on my daughter going to Afghanistan right now,’ because he had been shot. I mean, his helicopters had been shot at. He had been in the middle of shows when mortar fire came down.”

Keith was playing his song, “Weed with Willie,” for roughly 2,500 soldiers at a base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in April 2008 when mortar fire sent him and the crowd scrambling roughly 100 yards to a concrete bunker for an hour.

While underground, the “Red Solo Cup” singer signed autographs and posed for pictures with troops. Once the scare was over, he returned to the stage and finished the show. It wasn’t the first time Toby encountered mortar fire while on a USO tour, either.

“I literally have, when we had his service, I found a picture … There was an underground bunker, and he had like signed on concrete, something about like, ‘I’m in the middle of a show and some idiot set off some fireworks during my show,’” Krystal said, noting her dad had “signed it and had the date because they were taking on mortar fire and had to go underground.” 

She remembered his joke was that “they’re shooting off fireworks. How rude of them in the middle of my show.” 

“I just thought that was super cool and really special to find. But, you know, he loved the USO tours, and I wish that I would have been able to go on some of those,” she said. “I did spend time on tour with him. I opened for him from the time I was 14 on. I did the anthem. Anytime I’d go out on tour with him, I’d be like, ‘Hey, can I sing tonight?’ He’d be like, ‘Sure, you can go do the anthem. You can come out during this song.’ 

“So, I’d either sneak out and do background vocals on a song and no one ever knew I was there, it was just for me, or I would go out and do the anthem before he went on. Then, when I put my album out, we actually were the opening band for several tours.”

When Krystal forged her own path in the music industry, her dad handed down words of wisdom in his own “Toby Keith” way.

“He never said, ‘Don’t do this or don’t do that.’ He was like, ‘You can do whatever you want to do, but here’s my advice on it, and you can take it or leave it,’” Krystal remembered. “And he really let me carve my own path and … he rarely was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea for you.’ He just always let me come to my own ideas and lead things the way I wanted to lead them.

“When I got stuck, or I had, kind of needed some advice or needed a push, I would go in and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think about this song?’ and he would give me his advice then.”

On Wednesday, Krystal performs alongside a star-studded roster in the television special, “Toby Keith: American Idol” – a tribute to the late country icon who died Feb. 5 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Her performance was “bittersweet” and filled with “pressure” since it was the first time she had been back on stage since giving birth to her youngest daughter. 

“I took off time with her and then Covid hit, and then my dad got sick, so I haven’t been back on the road since ‘20; the end of 2018 was when my last single came out,” Krystal said. “I didn’t choose the song; they asked me to do it, and I really struggled with whether or not I would be able to get through it. I was like, if I can get through it without crying, if I can get all the words right, then I will be proud of myself and that’s all I need.”

She added, “I think he would be proud. I hope that everyone enjoys it. I think it was such an honor to be on that stage with all of those people.”

The two-hour “Toby Keith: American Idol” concert airs Aug. 28 on NBC, featuring performances by Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood, Darius Rucker, Jelly Roll, Eric Church, Lainey Wilson and more.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal