"This war's been going on for so many years," he says. "This should be a recruitment video," the poster wrote.īut Raum was worried the images would make it look like troops in Kandahar had nothing better to do than shoot lip-dub videos, something that couldn't be further from the truth. everyone loved it, and thanks for making our day )."Īnother commenter on YouTube had a different twist: props to all of you for being able to do that in such little time I shared it ?. In response to Raum's blog on Facebook, one poster wrote "I love it. Among the highlights: Five marines singing while on a shooting range, an airman doing the robot and another doing the "Batman" move John Travolta made famous in Pulp Fiction. The end result, a three-minute video posted to YouTube, already has 72,000 views and has all the makings of a viral hit. "They said, 'If our sergeant says we're going to dance, teach us the moves, we're going to dance.'" And the Marine commander had given explicit orders that everyone was to do whatever Raum and Moresi requested. When they tried explaining the concept, the troops gave them a puzzled stare, one of those, "Is this for real?" kind of moments.īut orders were orders. "They hadn't really been told what it was being asked of them," Raum says. The next group, outside near a C-130 plane, proved more of a challenge. "I barely had the words out of my mouth," he says, laughing, "and they were like, 'Yup, I'll go first."Īs soon as the hour was up, they were back to fixing the jet in the background. At one point, Raum asked the troops to gather in a circle "and look like you're having fun." "When the clock started ticking, started teaching them the first step of the dance move," he says. Raum thought the service members would need coercing, but the troops proved more than eager to be in the video, if only to have a memento of their service to send to family back home. With the imposing aircraft in the background, they faced their first challenge. When they met the first group, a dozen or so airmen, airwomen and maintenance staff, they were busy fixing a fighter jet. Getting jiggy with it usually doesn't make the list. Troops enlist for many reasons: An exciting career, defending the country, a chance to make a difference in people's lives. It meant they had to introduce themselves, explain the whole point of the video, teach them the dance moves, and shoot several re-takes of each sequence, all within an hour.ĭespite the time constraints, Raum and Moresi, a former cheerleader, had an even bigger worry: The troops themselves They would only get one hour with each group. Thanks to her connections on base, the Marine commander agreed to let them shoot the video, but with a catch: Moresi, a former cheerleader, would choreograph all the dance moves. The plan was simple: Raum, who has been an amateur photographer for years, would do the shooting on his small handheld camera. "We just put our heads together and figured out what we wanted to do," he says. There's even a mash-up of President Obama singing the tune. It has already led to several famous renditions, all the way from Colin Powell to Sesame Street's Cookie Monster. Jepsen's song proved to be a perfect fit.
"Showing the human side on the other side of the rifles is a great opportunity." "It's a side of the military that you don't get to see," Raum says of the project. A month earlier, a leaked video online showed Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. base near Kabul, setting off nationwide protests and riots that left dozens dead. troops "mistakenly" burned copies of the Quran at a U.S. The idea was to show troops in a more positive, light-hearted way, away from the controversies that have dogged the U.S. They were going to ask the service members on base to do a group lip-dub, to the tune of Jepsen's mega-hit. Raum and his longtime friend Randy Moresi, both employees with the nonprofit United Service Organizations (USO), came up with a plan.
It seems they may have done a whole lot more.
"We thought it would be a good way to boost their morale." "I'd just returned to Kandahar from the U.S.," he says. And at least one service member was caught doing "the worm" - the 1980s dance move where you wriggle backwards with stomach on floor - to the tune of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."Įric Raum still laughs when he thinks about it. Stern looking soldiers in workout tees and shorts were singing while offloading sandbags. A group of airmen were break-dancing in the hangar.