Actor Milo Ventimiglia spent the holidays overseas with the troops this year, flying along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford as part of the 15th annual USO holiday tour.
Milo Ventimiglia stars in the hit NBC drama This Is Us. He first gained fame as Jess on Gilmore Girls.
“16 flights on 4 different military transports covering 20,500 miles while crossing 8 time zones in 6 days to spend the holidays with over 4000 service members,” Ventimiglia wrote on Twitter Thursday. “Thank you #GenDunford @TheJointStaff + @The_USO for an amazing tour. True AMERICAN Leadership. Honored MV.”
The tour also included Olympian Shaun White; NCIS star Wilmer Valderrama; singer and television host Kellie Pickler; comedian Jessimae Peluso; Ventimiglia; Three-Time CrossFit Champion Mat Fraser; and DJ J. Dayz.
The first stop of the tour was Vaernes, Norway, where they hung out with U.S. Marines stationed there. They then moved on to the Middle East to visit sailors deployed at Naval Support Activity Bahrain.
They then visited the USS Stennis aircraft carrier, deployed to the Middle East. From there they visited troops deployed at Kandahar air field in southern Afghanistan. They then flew to Bagram air base in eastern Afghanistan. The next stop was Iraq on Christmas Day. Lastly, they stopped in Poland.
The USO holiday tour was started in 2003 by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, to express thanks and appreciation to deployed service members deployed overseas.
“While we can’t bring our troops home for the holidays, we can bring a bit of home to them – that’s what the USO holiday tour is all about,” Dunford said, according to a DOD media report.