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Singer goes on personal tour of duty to honor brother

Austin American-Statesman
By Shermakaye Bass, SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
01.10.08

Singer-songwriter Kristy Kruger is on a tour of duty ‹ a personal journey that, to her, in small ways echoes her brother's final tour of duty as a soldier.

Until Army Lt. Col. Eric Kruger was killed in 2006 in Iraq, his sister, now 31, had led a charmed existence. Her life was virtually unmarred by tragedy, she said recently while in Austin on a 50-state tour honoring her brother.

Only 14 months ago, she was a footloose artist, touring the country frequently, settling down only to earn money so she could hit the road again. Music was her world. At age 5, she'd begun studying classical piano and jazz, then shifted to folk music and Americana after college. By the time she was 30, she had released four self-produced CDs ‹ including the most recent, which bears the eerily prescient title, "Songs from a Dead Man's Couch" (a reference to a couch she once slept on while touring). She has been nominated for the Dallas Observer Music Award for Best Female Vocalist several times, finally winning it in 2006.

The future looked exceedingly bright for the Dallas Arts Magnet High School/University of Southern California graduate. She'd performed on National Public Radio's "This American Life." Ira Glass and other critics loved her. The Dallas Morning News' Thor Christensen wrote of her, "Imagine a female Tom Waits, produced by Daniel Lanois."

But to Kruger, all that changed when her 40-year-old brother was killed by a roadside bomb on Nov. 2, 2006, along with two other soldiers. An 18-year veteran, Eric had served in Korea, Afghanistan, Bahrain and other countries, but never in Iraq. He had been in the country for one day when he was killed. Making it even more incomprehensible to Kruger was the fact that Eric had volunteered for the tour.

"My brother was the cat with nine lives," she said recently over coffee at Austin Java (her tour has taken her through 12 states so far; she plans to hit another 10 or 11 before summer). "I never worried about Eric. He seemed invincible to me."

The death of her older brother, who would have turned 42 on Saturday, devastated Kruger. And when the Army casualty assistance officer told her that less than one-half of 1 percent of Americans had lost an immediate family member in the current Iraqi struggle, she was humbled. The fact that he'd volunteered for the tour also made her feel that his sacrifice demanded she find and fulfill a similar calling.

"After Eric died, I didn't know how I was going to proceed with my life. I was working as a filing clerk in Los Angeles just to make money. I'd moved back there (where she'd attended college at USC) to try to get my music placed in music and television. I was tired of touring and traveling," she says. Over time, she'd become increasingly depressed. "Honestly, I was starting to wonder if there really were any possibilities for me in music."

Then her brother was killed, and as horrible as it was, Kruger had an epiphany. She was struck by the realization that her brother had died doing something he believed in.

"All of a sudden it felt like a gross sin that was I feeling sorry for myself. ... It was such an eye-opener. My life had been so easy going. Suddenly, I thought, 'How long have I been going through the world not realizing the things people had been living through?' It gave me strength."

At the funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, Kruger made a promise to herself that she'd follow her brother's lead ‹ "that I, too, would die doing what I loved. I thought, 'What are my reasons for not just going for it?' He'd died so that I could go out and do what I wanted, so we all could ‹ so that I didn't have to worry about bombs going off in coffeehouses."

The auburn-haired singer returned home to Dallas and stayed on for a while to be with family. She couldn't help but think about her brother's birthday, Jan. 12. Knowing it would be difficult for the family, she decided to pay tribute to him with a performance in their hometown. She would invite her parents and other brother (Doug, 42), Eric's widow, Eric's college buddies and friends.

When Jan. 12 rolled around, "people came out of the woodworks," Kruger says. "We laughed and shared stories, and people kept shouting 'Hooah' (an Army yell)'. And I looked around the room and said to myself, 'This is the only thing I can do that will help me.' "

That night on stage, she realized something else.

Knowing that her brother had wanted to see all 50 U.S. states, Kruger decided to do it for him. In the process, she'd take him with her in some small way. She would sing about him to perfect strangers (she is working on a fifth album now, with many songs about Eric), and by sharing her stories, perhaps she could share something besides her grief.

She began to book the first leg of her tour, as she's done since college, deliberately picking small towns whenever possible, so that she could reach the people she wanted to reach. And beginning last March, she hit the road, with her friend and fellow songwriter Leslie Stevens sharing the bill. They played the Southwest, then headed up to Big Sky Country, wrapping in June. Starting this month, Kristy hopes to tackle the Southeast and chunks of the Northeast.

All the while, she has slept on friends' couches, eaten on the cheap, barely eeked by. But it hasn't been a sacrifice, she says ‹ quite the opposite.

"People come up to me after every show and talk to me about their losses. ... I felt that if I was strong enough to talk about my own, then it was my duty to do it. I can't bring my brother back, but I'm a folk singer ‹ I tell stories. I believe there is value in sharing a story. Maybe it will inspire someone ‹ maybe they'll go home and call the brother or sister they had some silly fight with and aren't speaking to. Maybe it will inspire them to write a letter to a soldier who doesn't have any family. I don't know, but I've always believed personal stories have great power."

As she's continued her tour, "seeing the land as if through Eric's eyes," Kruger has begun processing the loss and the feelings that come with it ‹ survivor's guilt, admiration, kinship, grief and the realization that she is not alone.

But the little sister of a soldier still has tough moments. When Kristy performs in a club or walks through an airport and overhears people "talking so casually about Iraq or talking about how many people have died, I want to say: 'That's my family. That's my brother. It is real.' This war has been so politicized, but I don't have an agenda. These shows are not about politics. In fact, I never even considered that until someone asked me if my tour was a protest. It's not. How could it be if I'm honoring a man who was a soldier?"

She has come to understand that although he was "a conservative military man and I was the wacky, arty sister," that she and her brother had very similar lives, even if hers isn't filled with danger.

"I always thought we were so different," she says as she finishes her coffee. "But there are some parallels between the life of a soldier and the life of a musician. They're both traveling professions. A troubadour, a soldier ‹ they're constantly moving."

Half the proceeds from Kristy Kruger's memorial tour will be donated to the Fisher House in Maryland, which provides comfort homes and resources for wounded veterans. Also, donations in Lt. Col. Kruger's honor can be made to the Fisher House. Visit www.fisherhouse.org for details, or write to Fisher House, 1401 Rockville Pike, Suite 600, Rockville, MD, 20852.

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