Sherae Honeycutt

FT. LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Original Post

Rockstar Bret Michaels is gearing up for a concert in Independence next month.

So on Tuesday, he stopped by Ft. Leavenworth to thank some active service members and invite them to come to the show. The lead singer of the band Poison touched down at the post to say hello meet with a training class of U.S. Army members.

“The truth of the matter is I’m just grateful to be here,” Michaels said. “I love it. This is the kind of day that makes my day. It makes an awesome day in my life, and I’ll get to come back and see everyone that’s here when we play the concert, and it’s going to be awesome.”

Some of them knew him for his music, but the mostly 20-somethings also knew him from his popular reality show, “Rock of Love.”

“He had advice for me on my show,” Michaels said jokingly to Xavier Keihl who said he should have ended up with “Rodeo” on the show. “He could have saved me.”

“I think it’s really inspirational,” Keihl said. “He has a lot of family in the military. He expresses that with everything that he does. I think it’s really important, and it’s special to us — me personally — that he takes time out of his schedule to share that with us.”

“Well, it definitely touched my heart to know that even if you’re a celebrity or not, that you guys respect us, and you know what we do is very important,” Jaylyn Johnson said.

For Sgt. James Davito, meeting Michaels made it a special day.

“Humbled and honored the fact that he came out and came out to see soldiers, and USO got a part of this,” Davito said. “We’ve been at war for 20 years, and he came out to let soldiers know they’re not forgotten about.”

“It made me feel absolutely honored to be here,” Michaels said. “The truth of the matter is I could not be more grateful for my freedom to get to do what I love to do. I get to play music. I get to have a freedom of opinion, and I get to rock the way I want to rock, and I could not be more grateful for our men and women that serve this country.”

For Bret, and everyone he met, it was nothing but a good time.

Michaels will play the Silverstein Eye Center Arena on Nov. 10 in Independence. Money raised at the concert will support some Kansas City nonprofits.