Military performers try out for a spot on 'Nashville Star'

NORFOLK NAVAL STATION

Carrying his acoustic guitar, Marine Cpl. Chad Van Rys looked out over more than 200 people seated Saturday on the flight deck of the Iwo Jima.

Van Rys, an inactive ready reservist, was auditioning to be on the reality show “Nashville Star.” And he was about to sing “Once a Marine,” a country song he wrote about a friend he lost on his second of three tours in Iraq.

“Once a Marine, then you are changed,” started Van Rys, a muscular 23-year-old from Nashville. “Once a Marine, you may never be the same.”

Van Rys was one of more than 30 military personnel and military family members trying out for a spot on the sixth season of Nashville Star, which begins June 9 on NBC.

Producers traveled to cities such as Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, to find contestants for the show. And on Saturday, they got the best of military performers plucked from bases around the world.

And unlike the vocalists from all those cities, many of the singers on the Iwo Jima were inspired and moved by their experiences in Iraq or their emotional connections to family members who have served in the military.

And they had the perfect audience: some of the 1,000 crew members of the Iwo Jima, as well as their families. Country star Billy Ray Cyrus, who will host the show, was also on hand to listen, pose for photos, and perform a song he wrote after meeting a Vietnam veteran in 1989.

“Somebody’s going to change their lives out there today,” said Cyrus, who played a verse from the song that made him a national name, “Achy Breaky Heart.”

Not wanting to give away the contestant chosen Saturday, Nashville Star would not allow the press to print who would make it on to the television show.

Even before they began Saturday’s audition, many of the contestants had heroic life stories to match their talent.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean Bennett received the Silver Star after he was shot in the bicep during a January 2007 insurgent attack on a compound in Karbala, Iraq. Bennett, who came from Alaska to perform, was invited to the auditions by Cyrus himself after he went up to the star after a concert and handed him a compact disc with two of his songs.

Katy Benko, 25, of Herndon wrote “A Soldier’s Wife” after her husband was deployed to Iraq just three months after they were married in 2006.

She ended up playing the song in 2007 for presidential candidate John McCain, and was flown the next day to play it in front of President Bush at the White House.

She realized that Saturday was the first time that her husband, 1st Lt. Ryan Miner of the Virginia Army National Guard, would see her perform the song in front of a public audience. He returned from Iraq in February.

“Sometimes, it’s really hard for me to get through the song still,” she said.

Benko, like the others, said she wanted to be the next Nashville Star. “Of course I’d love to win,” she said. “I’d be crazy not to.”

Van Rys, though, wasn’t pinning all of his hopes on Saturday’s competition.

“If I don’t make it here, maybe I’ll make it somewhere else,” he said before the audition, a tattoo peeking from the sleeve of his white T-shirt as he practiced guitar in the hangar bay below.

Van Rys is now going to school at the Nashville Auto-Diesel College.

“I think I might enjoy being a mechanic for the rest of my life, rather than being in the spotlight,” he said.

He said that his music is deeply connected to his time in Iraq, and being there made him realize how fragile life is. His song is about a Marine who lays his life down for another and doesn’t think twice about it.

But when asked to discuss the friend who inspired “Once a Marine,” Van Rys said quietly, “I can’t talk about it.”

Van Rys said music was crucial to him during his time in Iraq. When he played, he said, he could close his eyes and it was almost like he was back at a campfire around the lake, hanging out with his buddies.

Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com