Long before Toby Keith became known for visiting American troops in some of the most dangerous places overseas, there was a conversation with Toby Keith’s father that the country star never forgot.
Hubert Covel Jr. was an Army veteran who had lost an eye during the Korean War. Military service meant something personal in the Covel household. Toby Keith grew up watching a father who respected veterans and believed that their sacrifices should never be overlooked.
As Toby Keith’s music career grew, Hubert repeatedly encouraged Toby Keith to join a USO tour and entertain American service members stationed overseas.
There was one problem. Toby Keith was performing approximately 150 concerts a year and couldn’t imagine fitting another demanding trip into the schedule.
During a 2017 interview with Military Times, Toby Keith recalled explaining that problem to his father.
“Find time.”
Those were the two words Hubert gave in response.
In 2001, the year Toby Keith agreed to participate in a USO tour, Hubert died in a car accident. The following year, Toby Keith finally made that trip.
The First Trip Was Only the Beginning
In 2002, Toby Keith traveled to Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia, performing for more than 3,000 American service members.
The experience introduced Toby Keith to a different kind of audience. These weren’t ordinary ticket holders enjoying a night out. They were military personnel serving far from home, many separated from their families for months.
Toby Keith continued returning overseas. Over the following years, the performances took Toby Keith to military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries, including remote bases where visiting entertainers were uncommon.
In April 2008, one of those concerts became especially memorable.
The Night a Concert Stopped in Afghanistan
On April 24, 2008, Toby Keith was performing for approximately 2,500 troops at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan when incoming fire interrupted the show.
Toby Keith was in the middle of the humorous song “Weed With Willie” when the situation forced the performance to stop.
According to booking agent Curt Motley, Toby Keith and others ran roughly 100 yards to a concrete bunker.
For about an hour, the country singer remained in shelter with military personnel. Instead of simply waiting, Toby Keith signed autographs and posed for photographs.
When the all-clear was given, Toby Keith returned to the stage.
What happened next was unusual enough that Curt Motley specifically remembered it when describing the incident to reporters.
Toby Keith resumed the song at the very verse where the interruption had occurred.
The concert continued.
It was one small moment in a much larger commitment, but it showed why so many service members remembered those visits.
A Flight That Stayed With Toby Keith
Not every experience overseas involved singing or entertaining a crowd.
Years later, Toby Keith described a particularly difficult memory from a military flight departing Baghdad.
A scheduling change had delayed the traveling party, placing Toby Keith aboard a later military transport aircraft. Before departure, a flag-draped coffin carrying Army First Lieutenant Erik McCrae was loaded onto the plane.
Toby Keith traveled with the fallen officer’s remains to Kuwait.
In the 2017 Military Times interview, Toby Keith described the experience as deeply somber and an honor.
The connection did not end after the flight. Toby Keith later met Erik McCrae’s family in Oregon and maintained a relationship with them, seeing family members during subsequent concert visits.
For Toby Keith, the overseas trips had become about more than performances. They also created lasting personal connections with military families.
Eleven Trips and a Promise Remembered
By the end of Toby Keith’s USO involvement, the official record included 11 tours, more than 285 events across 18 countries, and nearly 256,000 service members and military family members reached.
In April 2014, the USO honored Toby Keith with its Spirit of the USO Award during a special Academy of Country Music tribute to the troops.
Toby Keith continued to speak proudly about those experiences in later interviews.
When Toby Keith died on February 5, 2024, at age 62, the songs and awards were only part of the story left behind.
There were also the military bases, the long flights, the people met along the way, and the families Toby Keith continued to remember.
And behind those 11 trips was a father who had once told a busy son to make time for American troops.
When Military Times asked Toby Keith why the first USO trip had happened, the answer was remarkably simple.
“I went for him.”