USO Holiday Tour Brings Cheer to Wounded Troops and Staff at Landstuhl
Sandra Lea Abrams
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health.mil
December 28, 2011
Actors Paula Patton and Tom Cruise meet a wounded warrior during their Dec. 11, 2011, visit with staff and patients at Landstuhl Region Medical Center, Germany. (U.S. Army photo/Phil A. Jones) In the past few weeks, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein Air Base in Germany has looked more like Hollywood than a military hospital thanks to a slew of celebrity sightings. Film star, Tom Cruise and actress Paula Patton paid a surprise holiday visit to LRMC on Sun., Dec. 11. Together, they went from ward to ward, visiting wounded warriors and thanking them for their service. The pair also toured the USO Warrior Center at LRMC.
The sojourn is part of USO’s long-time holiday tradition of bring celebrities, entertainers along with senior leaders to visit American service members who are far from home, either in war zones or recuperating from combat in military hospitals. LRMC is the largest U.S. military hospital outside of the United States.
Prior to Cruise’s mission, the rock band, Daughtry, and comedian, Gabriel Iglesias, stopped by on Dec. 9.
On Dec. 19, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with his 
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as part of the USO Holiday Tour, visits with the wives of local military leaders at the USO facility on nearby Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Dec. 19, 2011. (DoD photo/D. Myles Cullen) wife, Deanie Dempsey visited the troops at LRMC, accompanied by a delegation of USO entertainers. They included television competition singing champion, Jordin Sparks, actress Minka Kelly, Robert Horry, former basketball player and member of several NBA championship teams and Thomas “Nephew Tommy” Miles, a playwright, actor and comedian.
Dempsey, along with his senior enlisted advisor, Sgt. Maj. of the Army, Bryan Battaglia, held a town hall meeting with more than 400 service members and gave out coins to honor wounded warriors and hospital staff.
video by David Fitzroy
USO Holiday Tour photos of the DV visits:
Tom Cruise and Paula Patton http://usowarriorcenter.shutterfly.com/23921
Daughtry and Gabriel Iglesias http://usowarriorcenter.shutterfly.com/23860
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff http://usowarriorcenter.shutterfly.com/24270
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