82nd Airborne soldiers go Gaga

The soldiers have made their own music video for Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s hit-single “Telephone.”

“Telephone: The Afghanistan Re-make” has become a YouTube sensation with more than 230,000 hits since being posted on April 23.

The video opens with Sgt. Aaron Christopher Melcher and another soldier showing off their dance moves, including a few from the original music video, while wearing Army fatigues.

Then Melcher dons a belly-baring outfit seemingly made with yellow police tape and left-over black Christmas garland. Other soldiers shimmy in unique costumes, while another wearing an over-sized necklace with the initials “LG” lip-synchs Beyonce’s part of the song.

Melcher, a  2004 graduate of Gramercy Christian School in Newport, N.C., has been promoting the video through his Facebook page. A message sent to Melcher and his wife was not returned Friday afternoon.

"This is a couple guys located in Afghanistan that re-made the music video by Lady Gaga....Telephone. Prepare yourself for a fantastical journey," reads the description under the YouTube video. "Right now this is the temporary version, we have more scenes to cut, and edit. However, with guys always on mission it is harder to film than you think."

"How he rounded them up and got them to make costumes, I will never know how that happened," Melcher's mother, Chris Penwell, said Friday.

Penwell of Creedmoor said she is very proud of the video.

"He is making the best of a serious situation over there," she said. "He found humor in a chaotic place."

Melcher, who is on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, used items sent from home to create his unique outfit, she said.

Penwell said her 24-year-old paratrooper son has ventured into musical parody before.

"Back when he was in high school, he and his friends would videotape each other doing 'N Sync videos and make fun of them," she said.

Penwell described her son as charismatic. "Everybody loves him. He is just a great guy," she said.