War Dispatches To 'Doonesbury': Garry Trudeau Draws Soldiers to Blog

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: War Dispatches To 'Doonesbury'
Garry Trudeau Draws Soldiers to Blog
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 17, 2007; Page C01


At VA headquarters, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau signs "The Sandbox," a collection of blog entries from soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Katherine Frey/Washington Post)

....The project began last fall with one of the more bizarre solicitations in publishing history -- an invitation from a cartoon character. Trudeau penned the words, "It was a dark and messed-up night," in a "Doonesbury" Sunday strip, imagining a soldier blogging. In the next panel, B.D.'s cartoon comrade Ray Hightower announced the debut of "our command-wide milblog," where troops could vent and rhapsodize, and folks on the home front could learn what is going on from their point of view.

(First Sgt. Troy) Steward, 38, who recently returned from Afghanistan, and (Sgt. Owen) Powell, 40, who just got back from Iraq, are two of nearly 40 contributors published in the book. In all, nearly 100 have posted about 300 entries to the milblog.

Trudeau had been reading military blogs for years, for inspiration. Some of them were really good, he found, but they were being read by a limited audience. "Man, this is not right that only friends and family get to see this stuff," he remembers thinking. "We came up with the idea that the Global War on Terror needed its own literary magazine."

Despite Trudeau's merciless cartoon satirizing of the Bush administration, the U.S. military has a soft spot for the cartoonist. At least he seems to dig the troops. This morning he was scheduled to sign books with Steward and Powell at the Pentagon. He visited both the VA and the Pentagon last year with new cartoon collections featuring B.D.'s wounding in Iraq and his recovery. He is a discreet regular at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and at outpatient gatherings of wounded troops. Royalties from "The Sandbox" will go to support the Fisher House Foundation, the Rockville-based charity that provides lodging for the families of patients receiving medical care at VA facilities.

The Sandbox milblog is called the "GWOT-lit's forward position." As in so many virtual communities, most of the participants have never met. Trudeau, Steward and Powell first laid eyes on each other when they got to Washington Monday night. "We've all been an abstraction to one another," Trudeau says. But the cartoonist has taken pains to immerse himself in the experiences of this generation of warriors. It was the only way to convey believable cartoon scenes from the front, and to portray B.D.'s trying experience in Iraq and back home. Trudeau interacts easily with soldiers, speaking their language without apparent calculation...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101602265_pf.html

Link to "The Sandbox": http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/

[Kolesar]

1. That first blog post by Toby Nunn was quite good

Follow that link to the Sandbox to read it.
LEADERSHIP NOT LIKERSHIP Name: Toby Nunn

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thank you, Avenger! nt

[JPZenger]

2. Excerpt of Trudeau's Speech

Here is an excerpt, quoting Trudeau speaking recently before a group of Vietnam Vets:

"When I talk to wounded veterans, I usually don't ask them what they think the mission was. I don't presume, because their lives are wrenching enough without the suggestion that their sacrifices may have been without meaning. Moreover, if that is so, it will become apparent to them soon enough . . . The young men and women who we've repeatedly put in harm's way are paying the price for this misbegotten mission, and as long as it continues, I, like so many of our countrymen, must walk this strange line between hating the war but honoring the warrior. I don't know how long we can keep it up. . ."

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks, JP! nt