John (Chuckie) Manzanares was a childhood playmate in Lafayette, CO. He died in Vietnam and I found his name on the Wall of the Vietnam Memorial in DC. Tom Casteen and I would have been in the same Marine Platoon Leaders' Class at Quantico and I found his name on the Wall. Stanley McPherson was an acquaintance in Hobbs, NM and I found his name on the Wall. Now, when I read Doonesbury from Monday, April 19, 2004, onward, Garry Trudeau punched me in the gut. The past four Doonesbury episodes are below. Parents should exercise discretion due to graphic violence.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Who Are These People?
B.D.
College football star, Vietnam Vet, third-string quarterback for the Rams, Gulf War reservist, California Highway Patrol officer -- B.D. has worn many helmets o ver the years. He and his wife, starlet Barbara Ann Boopstein, share many memories of the 70s and their years at Walden Commune -- she posing for Playboy , he volunteering for Vietnam to get out of writing a term paper. Though captured by a Vietcong terrorist named Phred and wounded by a beer can, B.D. left the Nam relatively unscathed.
In his subsequent role as Boopsie's hardheaded Hollywood manager, B.D. exhibited minor skills and major attitude, a combination that did not help extend her list of credits. Their main production was Samantha, born in 1992. Better suited to life in uniform, B.D. was called to serve in Desert Storm, and later as a CHIP officer, but a diagnosis of Gulf War Syndrome left him sidelined and bitter.
A return to Vietnam helped him bury old demons and dig up several old war buddies - including Phred, now a mover and shaker in the new Vietnam. Hired by his alma mater to coach the football team he once quarterbacked, B.D. has come full circle, he and Boopsie once again living in the house at Walden where they first met.
Reactivated for a second Gulf War, B.D. was shipped out to Kuwait, leaving the Fighting Swooshes in Acting-Coach Boopsie's care. He serves as a public affairs officer at Camp Blowback, embedding journalists in frontline army combat units.
The noncom in these panels is B.D.'s buddy from Gulf War I: Ray. Ray is an unsentimental African-American and counterfoil to B.D., but he is committed to his comrade in arms. By the way, Trudeau started Doonesbury in the Yale campus newspaper and the football star at Yale at that time was Brian Dowling (note the initials). If this is (fair & balanced) shock, so be it.
All contents copyright © 2004 Garry Trudeau.
