Review: Bill Posley Is Your Kindly Neighborhood Veteran in The Day I Accidentally Went to War

The Day I Accidentally Went to War—Bill Posley’s story of fumbling into the Iraq War at 17—is served on a bed of dark comedy, but not one that could make a quarter bounce. Between the cardboard box of neon safety vests (the audience’s mandatory uniform), the smudged TV screen center stage, and the miniature megaphone through which our gleeful host for the evening shouts “oorah!” with an energy that’s far more camp counselor than marine, there’s an untidiness to Posley’s solo show, running in the basement space at SoHo Playhouse. Perhaps it wouldn’t pass inspection, but like a rumpled sheet, it’s utterly human—and with Posley’s mega-watt personality, utterly charming.

Directed by Bente Engelstoft, The Day I Accidentally Went to War is Posley’s follow-up to The Day I Became Black, his equally personal solo show about growing up biracial. Here, he prefaces the story of his military service with some personal context—a childhood marked by a father with the parenting philosophies of a drill sergeant, a mother with a debilitating gambling addiction, and JCPenney’s devastating line of clothes for “husky” boys.

It all adds up to a kid without the money, grades, or athletic prowess to catapult him to college. Ergo, the perfect low-hanging fruit for military recruitment. It’s a personal anecdote backed up by loads of statistics about the outsize representation of low-income and minority service members, which pop up on the aforementioned TV screen—a tool for whimsy at times (Howie of the Backstreet Boys features heavily), a tool for education at others.

Yes, Posley does aim to edify—but in the manner of a friendly stranger you happened to sit next to at a bar. He wants you to know that your typical US service member is more likely to be a teenager with a 2.3 GPA than a diehard patriot with a nuanced understanding of global affairs. He wants you to know that basic training involves a harrowing experience called the “gas chamber” but also may have unlocked the secret to peaceful coexistence in a melting pot.

And he wants you to know that even if you try to skirt combat by enlisting with the National Guard (famously the crowd management arm of the military), you could graduate basic training on 9/11 and find yourself at the trigger of a machine gun in the middle of the desert. And best of luck when you return. The nation’s interest in a veteran’s wellbeing doesn’t extend far beyond tearful homecoming videos on YouTube.

All of this is offered in the name of sharing—an outstretched arm to people whose understanding of military service spans Saving Private Ryan to Cadet Kelly. The Day I Accidentally Went to War doesn’t have a clean throughline, but Posley, in his regular return to the idea of understanding the “other” (a veteran, a brother-in-arms from another walk of life, an Iraqi civilian), tries to wriggle his story into an appeal to Americans of 2025. It’s the part of the show that lands with the tinniest ring—an overly simplistic plea for unity that feels like a relic of the Bush Era. But who knows, maybe it’s as simple as this kind, charismatic stranger is saying it is. Oorah?