FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) – The next time New England Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson hears his teammates compare a football game to a war, he’s going to straighten them out.

“We play a game, we win a game, we lose a game. But it’s not the end of the world, life or death, like it is over there,” Watson said Thursday after returning from a USO tour of American military bases in the Middle East. “It’s just real. It’s a whole other level.”

NFL players have been embarking on USO trips abroad since 1966, with past delegations including Terry Bradshaw, Dick Butkus, Larry Csonka, Mike Singletary and Gene Upshaw. Patriots special teamer Larry Izzo had gone to Iraq, and this year the team asked Watson if he wanted to go.

“Obviously, my first reaction was, ‘There’s a war going on. Why would I want to go to Iraq,”‘ Watson told reporters at the stadium on Thursday. “My wife’s reaction was the same. … My parents tried to talk me out of it.”

But Watson, who’s always liked to experience different places and cultures, decided that the chance to support the troops was worth the risk. He signed up for a 12-day trip to Kuwait, Iraq and Kyrgyzstan along with Kansas City guard Will Shields, Tampa Bay linebacker Shelton Quarles and Atlanta tight end Alge Crumpler.

They were also scheduled to visit the Pat Tillman Center, which was dedicated to the former Arizona Cardinals defensive back who died in combat, but the trip to Afghanistan was canceled because ice and snow kept their plane from landing.

“Watching Fox News and MSNBC does not do justice to actually being over there,” he said, “just like watching NFL Films doesn’t do justice to being in a doggone huddle.”

After taking a commercial flight to Kuwait and spending his time there at a Western-style hotel, Watson soon discovered that the Americans he was visiting didn’t live quite so luxuriously. He flew around Iraq on transport planes and helicopters, which needed a ring of tanks to secure their landing area.

At Camp Victory in Baghdad, he shared a trailer with one person; when they went to Haditha Dam, they all stayed on bunk beds in the barracks with thin, stained mattresses and no sheets or pillows. Some of the food was good, other food was the just-add-water packets given to the troops.

Bathrooms were across the camp, and sometimes not worth finding. But mostly what Watson will remember is the sense of danger.

“We all could die here (in the States). … But you don’t think about it as much,” he said. ” “The feeling of powerlessness that I had over there. Anything could happen at any time.”

Mortar fire and gunfire could be heard in the distance while he slept. For most of the time they were outside of the major military bases, he would wear flak jackets and helmets that made his NFL equipment seem like a windbreaker.

And whether he visiting injured soldiers in the hospital or just signing autographs, the threat of danger was never far. Watson spoke to one man who was telling him how his best friend was a big Patriots fan.

“I was like, ‘Where is he?”‘ Watson said, offering to meet him in person. “He said, ‘He died on a patrol.”‘

Others told Watson how they would get up in the middle of the morning to watch the Patriots play.

“This is their piece of home,” he said. “Sports is their one way to connect and feel like they’re home.”

By the end of the trip, Watson was eager to return. But even that was a reminder about how good he had it.

“We’d be like, ‘I can’t wait to go home.’ They’d be, like, ‘I’ve got five more months,”‘ he said. “But they know it to the day.”