Sunday's Doonesbury- Thank A Vet

[n2doc]

[TexasProgresive]

1. Connections are always good. n/t

[B Calm]

2. I had an old gal thank me for my service this past summer. I said thank me, hell I should be

thanking you for funding my French Riveria cruise, while others my age were being blown up in the Vietnam jungles for nothing.

[hack89]

3. "Thank you for your service" has always irked me.

and that's after a 20 year career in the Navy. I have never seen my military service as setting me apart from other people that serve their country and communities in so many different ways.

[sarge43]

6. Yup.

Someday I'm going to feel particularly snotty and ask them, "Have you thanked a teacher or a hospice nurse lately? They've done as much for this country as I did, maybe more."

[TxGrandpa]

9. Same here!!! Thanks for saying it.

Retired Army; Vietnam Vet.

[demigoddess]

28. It has irked me too, as a military brat, child of vets,

I saw vets of wars from Korea etc when I was 7,8,9 years old. You could tell that going to war was horrible for them, even afterward. Then Vietnam. We should only send people to war when we are in danger of our country being invaded.

[Augiedog]

4. Do you really want to thank a vet? VOTE!!! (Democratic)

[Paladin]

5. Trudeau nails it, as usual. (nt)

[oldlib2]

7. Vet has no meaning

I'm a Korean War vet officially. Unfortunately, I was still in training in 1953 when the war ended, and I didn't see Korea until years later on a business trip. I am unofficially a Cold War vet, as a tech maintaining the bomb/navigation system on the B47 bomber. The policy at that time was to have a better system to handle atomic bombs, then the Russians.

[classof56]

10. Welcome to DU from another Old Lib

Glad to have you on the board, and thanks for your post.

[madokie]

8. Welcome to my world

been 45 years and its as if it was just yesterday

[another_liberal]

11. Good old B.D.

He is so different now compared to the early Doonesbury years. At least cartoon characters do indeed change.

[Archae]

14. Yeah, when BD lost his helmet, he became sane.

Not the "football hero/right-winger" we were used to.

I still remember one early strip, BD is asking Mike how to spell certain words, and he asks Mike how to spell "ignorance."

"F.O.O.T.B.A.L.L. S.C.H.O.L.A.R.S.H.I.P."



Even BD's bubble-headed girlfriend has grown up.

[another_liberal]

16. I think Zonker is pretty much the same . . .

Although I guess he has become an entrepreneur of sorts?

[Octafish]

12. BFEE made a killing off Iraq.

From 2005, hoping the links still work:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3493251

The data're good.

[MH1]

13. Good point on its own, but misses the point of "thank you for your service",

or indeed, what that "service" even is.

(I'm a HUGE fan of Trudeau and Doonesbury, btw.)

I think the best expression of what "service" we should be thankful for, was given by the Jack Nicholson character in A Few Good Men (even though unfortunately, the context was him trying to defend his own indefensible actions). To paraphrase:

They stand on the wall ... so you don't have to.

It isn't about the particular war or action. Particularly with our all-volunteer service (never mind the "economic draft" aspect of it, for now, because a vanishingly thin slice of "progressives" think it should be any other way), it is because the veteran is someone who signed up to take orders and do what they are told to do (within very wide boundaries that only eliminate the extreme and clearly unethical), for whatever purpose the commander-in-chief, via the chain of command, has deemed worthy. Whether to take a bullet, or just do some unpleasant or personally unrewarding tasks.

They are at the service of the country (us) for whatever the country (we) decides they should do.

In terms of being thankful for their service, to those who did not serve, it should not matter what war the soldier did or did not serve in, just whether they served honorably. (And anyone who didn't serve should be damned thankful, because these people did what you probably should have done.)

Of course, the soldiers themselves have every right to question, once they are veterans, the purposes they were sent to serve. However as long as they themselves served honorably as soldiers, their questioning should be directed outward, not inward.

WE are the ones who should feel very uncomfortable about what was done in Iraq and other conflicts. Not those who stood on the wall and did what we told them to do.

[another_liberal]

15. We should get out of Cuba . . .

Then no one would have to stand on "the wall" for anyone else.

[MH1]

17. You really think we don't need a military at all?

If that's not what you're saying then I don't understand your post.

If that IS what you are saying then never mind, I've got too much to do today to go down that particular rabbit hole.

[another_liberal]

18. We do not need nearly as large of one as we currently support . . .

We also do not need our military to have bases in well over a hundred foreign countries, that's an excellent way to make sure we get involved in other peoples' arguments.

Finally we do not need to be prosecuting a half dozen undeclared, unnecessary, costly "wars of choice" all around the globe.

[tclambert]

26. Hey, who do you think keeps Canadian pirates off the Great Lakes?

If our navy mothballed one super aircraft carrier task force, those Canadians would be all over our iron ore freighters. Besides, we have to protect West Germany from invasion by the Soviets and Warsaw Pact countries. And space aliens! What if we had to defend the world from space aliens? You think the Chinese or the Russians would save the world?




(Goddamit I hate that I have to put that on so many of my posts.)

[PaddyIrishman]

31. Battleship

I caught the movie "Battleship" last night and having seen that you need all the navy you can get to protect yourself from those aliens.

[Moonwalk]

29. No. It doesn't miss the point of "thank you for your service." It nails the fact that...

...the vast majority of those saying "thank you" probably don't question the Iraq war or ever revisit it (or any other troublesome war like Vietnam or Afghanistan). In fact, the comic is making YOUR point. That we should feel uncomfortable about the war. But we don't. We stride up to vets, say "Thanks for your service," and stride away all pleased with ourselves. It's the VET who might well feel depressed, etc. when we say that to them. Because they might feel like they don't deserve it. Like they failed.

And the comic is in totall agreement with you that no vet should ever feel that way about a failed war. But many do. And that they shouldn't feel that way isn't going to stop them from feeling that way. Which all leads to the big point: That if we really want to thank those who serve, we need to make sure they serve to good purpose. Because if we waste them on bad and pointless wars, then all the thanks in the world isn't going to make them feel better about their service.

We may not be able to guarantee that we will win a war when we enter into it.. But we can be more thoughtful about whether it's worth fighting—win or lose. If we don't give wars more thought before sending in such men and women, then all the sincere "thanks yous" afterward will mean nothing to them. All they will do is make us feel good.

That's the message. I think it's said perfectly, and I don't think it misses a thing.

[UTUSN]

19. I've been gigged here for "being ungracious" in reply to the

mostly wingnut/chickenhawk meme of thank-you-for-your-service. I've said things like, oh it was nothing; or, my service was indentured servitude for later jobs/education; or, can you let me get on with my life?!1 I've stopped short of saying, what you're really thanking me for is that my going saved you from going. It's really classy/subtle the way TRUDEAU puts it here.

[another_liberal]

20. When I was in D.C. a few years ago . . .

I visited our war memorials on the mall. At the Korean War memorial I encountered a group of Korean War vets from my home State. When we had shaken hands and done introductions, I started to say the standard, "Thank you for your service," but I only got the "thank you . . ." said before what had been their friendly, smiling faces went blank or just looked away. I got the feeling they had already heard that enough for one day.

[UTUSN]

21. Ever since a DUer posted to me, "Can't you just be gracious?!1" I've sometimes mellowed a bit

Only mellow when the person seems sincere instead of obviously wingnut. And I often now say, "You're welcome." This seems to be more jarring to them than anything, like I'm owning their thanks unapologetically.

I'm proud that I think I saved one vet from re-upping to go to Iraq. He was in his 30s, had previously served six years and had about 40 jumps in Army Airbourne. When Iraq was pimped forward, he had talked to a recruiter or whomever about going back in and already had a tentative date for going in. I gave him a talk, "Look, you already served. You've got your mother and little brother. This thing is phony. They can't even come up with a real reason for it. Don't go." He's not that verbal so I don't know whether he was convinced by me. Around that time there was this loudmouth Shrub-lover in the mix. I wear my junk, my dogtag, a Navy/Vietnam ballcap, and this jerk who was of the age to go, gushed over me with the thank-you stuff and I said, "Oh, it was nothing," and he came back at me with, "Yes, it WAS" and we had a little tiff about it. The other fellow happened to enter the room at that moment and I pointed to him and said to the jerk, "If this dude comes back in a box, don't you ever come up to me and shake hands or whatever!1" The jerk said, "It's not my fault..." I said, "Yes, it is because you're all for it."

[another_liberal]

23. The country did not need to fight that war . . .

So you did the right thing.

All of us would try to do what is necessary to defend our country, but what the hell does that have to do with Iraq?

I admire, respect and honor the enlisted women and men who served in Iraq. Our country told them to go, and they obeyed. We have to have Americans who will simply do what they are told to do when ordered. It's senior officers worthy of their troops and politicians with more goddamned intelligence that we really need.

[UTUSN]

22. Korean vets are Stoics, noble sweethearts. I've never met one who complained. n/t

[Gothmog]

24. Another great Doonesbury strip

[countryjake]

25. K&R!

[tclambert]

27. I would think B.D. would have a different reaction, since he also served in VietNam.

After that war, many vets were incensed or terribly depressed because they didn't get thanked, and sometimes suffered insults. And back then, a lot of them were drafted, forced to go fight against their will. Although, I believe B. D. volunteered.

[bluestateboomer]

30. I have come to think of veterans more as victims.

Veterans who were conscripted as well as those who volunteered, whether for economic or political reasons, have been sent to fight and die in conflicts which are unjustified and benefit special interests. The results of these engagements bear little relationship to the interests majority of people in our country. In fact, many times the end result is detrimental in both the long and short term. When we thank vets for their service we really just are grateful that they and their comrades chose to stay alive in the murderous mess into which our government sent them.