VALLEY CENTER ? As a prisoner of war, Pfc. Patrick Miller enjoyed irritating his Iraqi captors by singing the pro-American song, “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.”

“It was one of them that popped into my head,” Miller said.

Back in his childhood hometown for his homecoming celebration Saturday, the former POW was reluctantly persuaded to strike up the tune with three school buddies one more time for the couple of thousand people who honored him with a parade and rally.

But the impromptu quartet did not get too far before they were abruptly cut off.

“It think it would be better if we got someone who knows how to sing it,” Bobby Massey, pastor of Valley Center Assembly of God, told him.

Then Miller watched incredulously as country music singer Toby Keith emerged from the crowd and strode up to the platform.

Keith asked the former POW to join him in singing the song, “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.” The crowd roared whenever Keith stepped back and let Miller sing a few lines of the song. Miller blinked back tears.

“He sang it with a lot of passion,” Keith told reporters later.

Rusty Callahan, one of Miller’s closest friends, had been in on the surprise visit for the celebration.

“I started getting tears in my eyes because he had tears in his,” Callahan said.

Afterward, the singer presented Miller with the guitar he had played. It was the second guitar Miller received that day; the other was from a woman in Madison, Miss., who had sent him one signed by Keith.

Keith abruptly left after that song, saying he wanted to be careful about how he handled his visit because he did not want to take away Miller’s spotlight.

“It was his day,” he said.

But Keith joined Miller later for a private lunch, where the two joked about beer drinking and “just guy stuff.”

“After finding out he was singing the ‘Red White and Blue’ to the Iraqis — how can you say no?” Keith said of his visit.

Earlier at the Freedom Rally, Miller stuck to the same statement he has given in all his public appearances.

“We still have people fighting, people are still going over there,” he said. “Some will come home, some might not come home. We don’t know yet. So please keep them in your thoughts.”

Later, Miller told reporters he didn’t know how to explain his feelings.

“It feels real weird — getting all the attention,” he said.