A Down-Home Diversion On 'Country Convoy'

Spec. Kristen King, 21, of Louisiana, hosts the military's popular radio show from a trailer in the Green Zone. (By Jonathan Finer -- The Washington Post)

BAGHDAD The U.S. military's most popular radio host in Iraq downs her last swig of coffee at 9:53 a.m., slings a pistol over her shoulder and steps into the makeshift studio with five minutes to spare.

She slips on a headset and grabs a puffy microphone from a desk drawer, standing before a bank of three flat-screen monitors and a large sound control board. This is 107.7 on the FM dial, known to U.S. soldiers as Freedom Radio, and it's time for country music.

"We're gonna get it started with LeAnn Rimes and some Kenny Chesney, who you all know I love," says Spec. Kristen King, 21, her sugary twang a product of her Shreveport, La., upbringing. "And don't forget the phone calls, y'all. They're the greatest."

A reservist halfway through a journalism degree at Louisiana State University, King is energetic and apple-cheeked, with a tireless smile. She wears desert camouflage fatigues, and her straight brown hair is pulled tightly behind her head.

Her program, "Country Convoy," is four hours of down-home Americana beamed throughout Iraq from a fiberglass trailer tucked amid a warren of identical units in the fortified Green Zone. On the wall behind her is an Iraqi flag embossed with the logo of her distributor, the Armed Forces Network.

"Kristen King drives the cowboys crazy six days a week," says a baritone voice over the speakers, as the host fiddles with the volume levels and taps her toes. A strobe light alerts her to the first in a steady stream of requests, some of them a bit puzzling.

"Hello, Freedom Radio," she answers, cheerfully.

"This is Specialist Moore," the caller says. "I wanna hear 'Achy Breaky.' "

" 'Achy Breaky'?" says King, making sure she heard him correctly over the faint phone line.

"Yes, ma'am. And when you do that, can you ask them guys down in Outlaw, 'What you know 'bout killin'?' "

"Ask them what they know about killing?" she says, rolling her eyes and biting down on her index finger to stifle a laugh. "Okay, then. You got it."

"I try to get the songs on quick for these guys, because you never know if they're about to go out on a mission," she says. "The most requested ones are drinking songs. 'It's Five O'Clock Somewhere,' by Alan Jackson. 'Alcohol,' by Brad Paisley. You know -- things they can't get here."