Schilling makes USO appearance

Sport sometimes enters a soldier's day without being invited.

Such an episode occurred when Army Captain Brett Prillaman strolled into the mess facility at his base in Baghdad, Iraq, last December.

"All they have open at that time of day" -- between lunch and dinner -- "is a sandwich bar," he said. "And you have to get the sandwich 'to go.' I decided to sit down at a shaded picnic table to eat my lunch. Two other soldiers were sitting there eating, and there was a third lunch there, unattended. Both soldiers were grinning as I sat down and started to eat. I asked them what they were grinning about. They both said that in about two minutes, I'd find out."

A few minutes later, Prillaman said, a sturdy man with close-cropped sandy-blond hair approached the table.

"With a mouth full of ham and swiss, I said, 'Holy (bleep) . . . that's Curt Schilling.'" Prillaman was correct. Schilling, he said, heard, laughed and sat down to eat. "Turns out the other two soldiers were his escorts."

Prillaman said Schilling, the hero of the Boston Red Sox' mythic victory over the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series, was visiting bases in and around Baghdad in conjunction with a USO tour.

"We talked for about 10 minutes, then he had to leave to fly to another base." -- Vic Dorr Jr.