US News

US soldiers in Afghanistan inspired by Lady Gaga in latest YouTube hit

Move over Susan Boyle — and make room for our boys in Afghanistan.

A group of US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan have become overnight YouTube sensations after a video of them singing a desert remake of Lady Gaga’s hit song “Telephone” went viral.

The video, which began to spread online earlier this week, was taped recently inside a garage at the Forward Operating Base in Farah Province, according to thesmokinggun.com.

Posted onto YouTube a week ago, the roughly four-minute video — complete with props and soldiers in drag from the 82nd Airborne Division — was the brainchild of Aaron Melcher, a married soldier from North Carolina.

Melcher, 24, said the video was intended to be for “a couple of our friends and family and you can see that it has blown up way more than that … nobody in the video would like any further media coverage.”

In the video, Melcher opens the segment with fellow enlistee Justin Baker, who is not nearly as enthusiastic a dancer as the energetic and gyrating Melcher.

Melcher’s co-stars were identified by thesmokinggun.com as Kenneth Eichler (seen wearing short shorts and a pair of large shades), a shirtless James Conley, Kory Roberts, Mike Castor and Joshua Pilon.

Pilon posted a brief update on his Facebook wall on Wednesday, saying, “5,000 views … I’m going to be Famous!!!”

In a post on his Facebook page, Conley wrote of the video: “This is what people do with they free time in Afghanistan. It’s crazy out here. And yeah I’m in it too.”

Melcher can’t be too surprised the video has become popular.

When he first uploaded “Telephone: The Afghanistan Re-make,” he told his Facebook friends to “feel free to share it with the world.”