doonesbury

I didn't see the Sunday comics, but this morning's edition of the Dallas Morning News ran a repeat of an old Doonesbury strip. I'm assuming they chose not to run the list of names.

If I'm correct, I doubt that it was because they thought the strip to be in bad taste. (I really don't know how anyone could think that was the case).
More likely they anticipated the reaction of readers who have come to distrust the intentions of Mr Trudeau.

I confess that I find it hard to believe there was not some sliver of politics in his motivation for this strip, but even so, I don't see a reason not to run it.

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I agree with you, Finn. (gasp!)
A Texas paper didn't run it, hmm? I think it's safe to say that was a political move.
I cut out the comic for my scrapbook.
I've mentioned this elsewhere... but, in a town near me, the VFW writes the name, rank, age and state or country of origin of every soldier who has died thus far in these two wars, and posts each on a telephone pole in town with the flag of that person's country, and it was quite a touching tribute that does force you to give a thought to the sacrifice of their lives as you drive by. This year, pretty much every pole in town had a name on each side. Next year I will volunteer to help. They're gonna need it. Sad

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This morning I went to visit a young man in the hospital who is grandson of a good friend. He was on this third tour of duty - he was in the first wave into Afghanistan, suffered minor wounds, lost no time from 'work'. He was in the first wave into Iraq and again took some shrapnal but lost no time from 'work'. This time, his third tour, he was near one of those car bombs the cowards are placing around. His best friend standing next to him was killed. He was severely wounded.

I couldn't get him to talk about himself. He grieves for his friend and tears come to his eyes when he talks of him. And he talks of the good work they are all doing to help people, really help people in Iraq.

And he is terrified they won't let him go back.

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Sad.

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the reincarnation of suzy wrote:

Sad.

Why?

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Because he lost his friend, is "severely wounded" and can't wait
to go back for more. Maybe sad isn't the right word...
My guess is he's lacking something in his civilian life. Being at war, in which many die horribly on a daily basis, is satisfying to him? Maybe the first time he's ever felt useful, even. Sad.

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Suzy
More likely his wish to return is to rejoin his unit so he doesn't feel like he deserted them, a common looking out for each other feeling among the wounded.

BBB

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I cant help but wonder how many of foxfire's friends are real and how many are figments of her imagination. I cant concieve of a person who just had a friend killed before his eyes while being badly wonded wanting to go back to war.

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Ever been in a war, rabel?

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rabel22 wrote:

I cant concieve of a person who just had a friend killed before his eyes while being badly wonded wanting to go back to war.

Don't want to tell you what to think, but it's a pretty common phenomenon:

Quote:

Thomas C. Koch, Jr., a member of a military police company mobilized out of Fort Leonard Wood near Rolla, Mo., was driving a truck along a stretch of Baghdad highway nicknamed Ambush Alley in July 2003 when an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade hit the truck's side mirror and bent it toward the cab.

Moments later, a bullet hit the mirror, showering Koch's face with glass; one piece lodged in his left cheekbone. A second bullet struck the left corner of his mouth, ripped open his cheek and shattered teeth. Koch's assistant driver grabbed the wheel until Koch came to a few seconds later.

"I spit out the bullet and pulled the glass out of my cheek," said Koch, 33. "He stared at me for a second or two like I had come back from the dead. I don't imagine I looked too good."

As a combat lifesaver, the other driver was equipped with a bag of medical supplies including field dressings - large gauze bandages Koch used to stanch his bleeding.

"Even though it was chaos, it was very efficient," Koch said. "He was on the radio with one hand and handing me bandages with the other. And I was driving with one hand and stuffing bandages in my mouth with the other."

Koch is back at Fort Leonard Wood for plastic surgery, root canals on damaged teeth and bone grafts for his jaw. He wants to return to Iraq.

Bavley, Alan. "New technology and medical practices save lives in Iraq." Knight Ridder Newspapers, 17 Dec 2003.

Quote:

Andrew McCaffrey's right hand was blown off by a grenade in Afghanistan. A Special Forces medic tackled him and knelt on his stump to stanch the bleeding as they waited for the medevac helicopter...

"Do not kick me out for this," Sgt. McCaffrey grunted to his commander as the medevac chopper lifted him, with a bleeding, bandaged stump, from a dirt road in Afghanistan on July 1. "I ain't done yet."

McCaffrey, 31, from Massapequa, N.Y., works out in the rehab gym at Walter Reed. He is past the point when he couldn't bear to look at his stump. He fits a self-designed strap on his artificial arm and yanks it to keep his carbon-fiber limb tightly attached while he's doing pull-ups.

Scott Barkalow's legs were shattered in Afghanistan when a mine detonated beneath his truck. As he lay shivering in the snow, knowing the pain would come, he looked down to find his right leg missing below his knee...

"If they'd let me go do what I do with the leg like this -- yeah, I'd go back," said Barkalow, 41, a Special Forces sergeant wounded Feb. 19. "My wife ain't going to like hearing that."

While Barkalow struggles through rehab at Walter Reed, his wife, their 9-year-old stepdaughter and 8-year-old son are at home in Dickson, Tenn.

Source: Wood, David. "Amputees Returning to Duty." New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12 Oct 2003.

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The thing is, whether you believe the war in Iraq was legal or justified or moral or whatever, there are wonderful, humantarian, good things coming out of it. And a lot of these young people who are part of that are grateful for the experience.

The young man I mentioned here may or may not decide to be career military, but his grandad says that he can't see that he does much good polishing brass or standing guard duty or pushing paper on an American base. He likes doing what he trained so hard to do and he likes knowing one part of the world is likely to be a better place because he does it.

And it hasn't been mentioned, but I am guessing that a military unit does become 'family' with an esprit de corps and this creates a loyalty and sense of responsibility to the whole.

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the reincarnation of suzy wrote:

Because he lost his friend, is "severely wounded" and can't wait
to go back for more. Maybe sad isn't the right word...
My guess is he's lacking something in his civilian life. Being at war, in which many die horribly on a daily basis, is satisfying to him? Maybe the first time he's ever felt useful, even. Sad.

It's interesting, but perhaps not surprising, that this would be your take on the young man's desire to return.

If, as foxfyre has suggested, the young man believes he has been engaged in a noble and helpful effort in Iraq, might it not be inspiring, rather than sad, to learn that he wants to return (depite his wounds) and continue what he believes is truly worthy work?

Frankly, if he was actually terrified that they won't let him go back I would have to agree that there is something a bit teched about the boy, but I suspect this was simply the literary flair of foxfyre at work.

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I've talked to several career military types and learned that one of the lures of war is that on a battlefield one feels terribly alive--and a part of something larger than one's self.

Personally, I have a low threshhold for excitement and novelty. I can't understand why people spend perfectly good money to be tossed around by the machines in amusement parks. I can find excitment in a trip to the grocery store. My idea of togetherness can be found in the Roar of the Greasepaint--simulating high drama, not living it.

Still, there are other people--perfectly normal people--who need more much more adrenaline than I do. A week of peaceful evenings at home--with or without a good book--and these types are climbing the walls, gibbering with accumulated boredom.

The Adrenaline Junkies, the heroes, the people who extend frontiers or fight wars or bungie jump or climb mountains just because the mountain is there are perfectly normal people.

By the by, some women have always died in childbirth and yet through the ages, perfectly normal women have chosen to have babies.

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"I've talked to several career military types and learned that one of the lures of war is that on a battlefield one feels terribly alive--and a part of something larger than one's self."
Yeah, I understand that. There is certainly a brotherhood and atmosphere in the military that many don't find elsewhere, and relationships formed on the battlefield often last a lifetime and have a deeper and different meaning than other relationships.
That notwithstanding, the scenario as presented, IS sad and I would be concerned about the young man's psyche, just as Finn himself admits.
But we can tell ourselves it's bravery instead, and secretly think "better him than me" while congratulating him on his courage.
Somebody's got to do what he's doing, after all, so let's just pretend it's perfectly normal to act as if you like and miss doing it. They spend many months learning how to be "men" and obedient soldiers, after all. They work their asses off to get there and it's become life as they know it for some of them. To have it end suddenly might be disappointing, but I don't know about terrifying. Hopefully many of them have OTHER supports in their life besides their military unit.

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Today's episode mentions the 14 permanent bases being built in Iraq. Sovereignty for that country is a thing of the past.

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I may be late but the Memorial Day Capitol Concert with participation of all the armed forces projected the names on the canopy with a musical background of the dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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