Heroes hottie Milo Ventimiglia celebrated his 31st birthday earlier this month with some real-life heroes — U.S. soldiers!

The television star took a break from shooting his hit NBC series to visit the military troops on a USO tour, spending nearly a week in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. The troops even presented him with a birthday cake for his efforts!

“The tendency is for people to just read the news and talk about the war,” Milo has said. “That wasn’t enough for me. To be able to come out here and say ‘thank you’ was important to me. It made me really happy to see smiling faces. That’s what it is all about, knowing I made their day.”

He added, “My father’s a veteran, my uncle’s a veteran, my grandfather was a veteran. I nearly went into the Navy myself when I was 18. So I got a chance to go overseas and give the men and women of the armed forces a little bit of a respite.”

And apparently the troops keep up with Heroes! Milo shared, “When I was over in Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of soldiers were like, `Dude, will you just kill Sylar already? Will you just get rid of him?’ And I’m like, `Man, I don’t know if you’re gonna want that just yet. I think you’re going to be very surprised as to what happens.’”