Sunday, December 17, 2006

DOONESBURY

Wouldn't you love to get inside the head of Garry Trudeau? Honestly, I always smile, especially when he fillets the obvious. He's had two cartoon strips recently that jangled my chimes. One was some Vietnam vet sitting in a VA group probably. He tells his story: night sweats, can't hang onto relationships, scared of the dark (these are all my problems). The leader of the group goes around the room and says to this one guy, OK, what do you want to talk about today. He says, "I just want to say I'm thankful that I am not like him"--meaning the Vietnam vet. I guess you would have had to be there but to a vet, it is funny, really funny. As my Dad use to say, might as well laugh as cry.

The other cartoon panel had to do with Iraq; the General says "the military might be broken." The interviewer, Trudeau's character, says something like, "well, maybe we ought to think about the draft?" Then a resounding NO, like Bremer said when he was screwing up Iraq, "don't mention Vietnam to me." NO, no, the characters says, look at what the draft did to our generation. Then he says, "who is here that served back in the day? (The draft). No one and then, we are assuming the prez says, "well, you guys were lucky. I was stuck in the National Guard for five years. A voice says, "four." And then the last panel, "Oh, thank you Dick. At least I didn't have "other priorities." Dick, we assume says,

I had to think about the next war. So we would get it right. That's why we're winning. You have to smile.