By Spc. John Crosby
4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division Public Affairs
CAMP TAJI, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. Joe Naylor from Citrus County, Fla., a member of 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, and Sgt. Jason Sims from Wenatchee, Wash., a member of 202nd Brigade Support Battalion, have developed a magic act that has gotten a lot of recognition.
With the heat, constant threat of violence and distance from loved ones, Soldiers deployed to Iraq have many pressures that can lower morale. Something as simple as a laugh, letter from home, movie or even a show can be just the thing a Soldier needs to get their mind off the daily stressors of deployed life.
The talents of two Soldiers' with the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, here in Iraq have done just that: eliminated, if only for a few minutes, any stress or worry a Soldier might have.
Staff Sgt. Joe Naylor from Citrus County, Fla., a member of 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, and Sgt. Jason Sims from Wenatchee, Wash., a member of 202nd Brigade Support Battalion, have developed a magic act that has gotten a lot of recognition.
Together they perform magic shows for different units throughout the brigade.
"Their show is 75 minutes that put you in a place of what I call complete happiness," said Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell, the brigade's top non-commissioned officer. "Everyone laughs and asks, 'How did they do that?' It's 75 minutes of peaceful bliss."
"We normally do shows for the units ... as they rotate platoons in and outside of the wire so when they get back, they can relax and have some laughs," Naylor said.
"I saw their first act a couple months ago," said Staff Sgt. Matthew Rink, the brigade's retention non-commissioned officer. "I saw Sergeant Naylor do some tricks and that's how I heard about Sgt. Sims. I was waiting for them to put on their first show but they kept putting it off. When I finally saw their first show, it was amazing. I am their biggest fan. I've been there for all of their shows except one because I was on the phone with my kids."
"I remember one show where they had a man draw a picture of a lizard," Rink continued. "They put the picture in a box. Then they opened the box, and a live one came out. There was this female that was so scared she got out of her seat and ran away. That's how you know they're good. Just a little bit of magic can affect someone on a scale like that. It's amazing. I look forward to their next show."
Sims has been doing magic for almost 20 years.
"It's basically how I made it through high school and college. I would do card tricks at parties," he said.
Naylor, Sims protégé, has been practicing magic for about a year.
Naylor met Sims during a brigade field training exercise when Sims was performing magic. Naylor really didn't know how to do magic at the time.
Sims performed a few card tricks and soon an entire platoon had gathered around to watch. After the show, Naylor approached Sims wanting to learn magic. Sims told him that if he could demonstrate a Charlie A, then he would teach him magic.
A Charlie A is a single-handed cut of a deck of cards.
Ten minutes later, Naylor had learned the cut.
Sims said magic isn't just learning hand moves. It's learning the whole concept of how to perform, execute a trick and make it work. It takes a lifetime of learning.
"Magic has been around forever, and it's part of our history," Sims said. "To be a part of something like that, the mysterious side of life, is fun because there's no greater feeling than making someone question their reality."
"I remember watching Lance Burton and David Copperfield and being totally amazed," he continued. "I remember Lance Burton taught a card trick on one of his shows and I picked it up. I showed my mom. It was a real simple card trick. I was only about nine or 10 years old, so for me to be able to reproduce that effect and make my mom go 'Whoa' ... I was hooked."
Their first show was June 1 in Tarmiyah, where the troops had no air conditioning, plumbing or hot chow, and only hot bottles of water to drink. The magic show was one of the only morale builders. The troops loved it and were on their feet laughing and having a good time," Troxell said.
"I love doing shows when everyone is having a good time and we're getting some laughs," Sims said. "It's hard over here, so to bring peoples' spirits up, make them smile and just forget where we're at ... it makes it all totally worth it."
Naylor remembers watching David Copperfield and Harry Houdini. He was always interested in magic but it was never available to him.
"The magic community is pretty closed off and secretive," Naylor said. "When I met Sims, he really inspired me. I went to his work pretty much every day. I had to learn it."
Sims said he is enjoying having a protégé, because it forces him to try and progress.
"It's not crazy like the (movie) "Prestige" or anything but we have a healthy competition going," Sims said.
Naylor often walks around to the command posts were Soldiers are struggling to stay awake. He shows them a few card tricks and leaves them scratching their heads.
"To me it's almost a service," Naylor said. "I love it and enjoy it. I do it for the reactions, for the rapport that you build in less than five minutes."
"Since we have been here, the last five months things have really picked up," Sims said. "We did a few things in Kuwait, and that kind of got things rolling. People began approaching me like, 'Hey, you're the sergeant that does card tricks,' or the occasional, 'Hey, you're the magic man!'"
"If one more person comes to us and asks us to make them disappear, we're going to make them do push ups, and if they out rank us, were going to have to figure out something clever to say because we're magicians not miracle makers," Sims said laughing.
Troxell said he is looking forward to seeing Naylor and Sims' new tricks at upcoming shows.
"They're some extremely talented young guys. When times are bad they can really lift morale," the command sergeant major said.
Naylor, whose job is to train the Iraqi army on infantry tactics, said entertaining the troops is an honor and can be very humbling.
"Those guys out there on the line deal with the possibility of death everyday," he said. "For an hour we can put their minds in a place where they don't have to think about that. For the next hour they can watch me swallow needles or disappear this card or whatever it is we have for them. That's what their mind is focused on in the moment."
Sims, a generator mechanic, said there is a lot that makes it hard on the troops, and he understands their struggle.
"To be able to pull away from that a little bit and have them thinking about, 'How did he do that trick?' instead of going out on that next mission where they possibly could not come back from, it's humbling and at the same time therapeutic too, because you can get a good laugh out of someone, build rapport and get that good team feeling back up."
Sims and Naylor are looking to take their act into the future.
"I can definitely see magic being a major part of the rest of my life," Naylor said. "Being an illusionist, being somebody who creates that moment, is definitely something I love,"
"I just plan on seeing where it takes me," Sims said. "I don't have any expectations, but I do know that I fully intend to keep performing and keep wowing people. I want to keep amazing people and amazing myself. It's all about that moment where your reality bends and the impossible is possible and everything you thought you saw was what you actually didn't see."