Just Another Casualty

Today's Doonesbury; only relevant if you're a fan. I think Ray's tying off a tourniquet - which is what you might do if someone's lost, say, an arm.

Sad.

Comments

[fresburger]

Congrats man, looks like you nailed it. I got a link to a story confirming you suspicions. You can find it off my blog.

fresburger
(link on the list at right)

[Mithras]

Ugh. I didn't want to be right. But okay, this can be good. People don't seem to understand that the cost of war is not just monetary. They need to read what it's like to have your leg blown off. We'll get into the psychic pain for B.D. (who at least has a physical injury that makes his mental condition "understandable"), the guys like Ray who haven't gotten hit (unless the storyline takes it that way), and the civilians. When they're weighing the pluses and minuses of invading a country that wasn't a threat to us, maybe they'll take those into account, too.

[fresburger]

Ever since your comment yesterday, I have been thinking on BD's life stateside.

Warning: You're following a longtime heavyduty Doonesbury fan down the rabbithole here. Okay... ready....

After coming to grips with his corporeal loss, how is he going to deal with not having a job, an the concomitant effects of unemployment? Think about it. For now Boopsie has killed the football program. But even when BD comes back will that position be there for him? If Trudeau wants to be honest it won't.

To be crass and frank: how many amputee head football coaches do you see? At the D-1 level I would hazard a guess of zero. [A quick google search of "amputee, football, 'head coach'" revealed no coaches on the first two pages of results. Just info on a San Jose St. player] I'm not saying that head coaches have to be examples of fitness. For football I refer you to Ralph Friedgen head football coach for the U of Maryland. But still. I wonder just how radical the change will be for BD, Boopsie and Sam.

Will this turn him against his diehard Republican ways?

[Mithras]

The story you linked on your site said:Trudeau said B.D. would learn to deal with his injury "probably the same way so many wounded vets seem to - with gratitude for having had one's life spared, empathy and respect for those who have suffered worse, and a grim sense of humor indispensable to fending off despair."I would guess Trudeau is talking about the immediate aftermath of B.D.'s homecoming, rather than longer term. An amputee is probably not worried about working again for a time. Let me speculate a little more, though.

He's going to be angry and depressed. He'll also probably be in the hospital in Germany, and visits from family will be welcome. It'll take a while to get home. He'll be around guys who lost more than he did - their sight, their genitals, their faces, their arms and legs, so that will sober him up. (I assume he hasn't taken a wound to the groin, too - although that would make it even harder when he gets home.)

Once he's home, he'll have feelings of helplessness and dependency after a lifetime of physical fitness. Boopsie will have to do everything for him. He'll be welcomed back but, as you say, there's no job for him in Walden. I would guess they pack up and move back to California.

I think it's very possible he'll get very angry, racist and homicidal. He might say that we should just nuke the Iraqis and go home. I don't think he'll be bitter over the long run - Trudeau is clearly not thinking that way - but it might get very ugly.

I don't think he changes his politics because of this. He's not wired like that. He's not going to bad-mouth the premise of invading Iraq, although he will criticize the particular execution of the war and the way we care for returning vets. Although he might lay some blame at Bush's feet, he's not becoming a Democrat anytime soon.

I bet no money that any of this will actually play out in the strip.

Strangely for my predictive powers, it looks like in today's strip Ray is holding an IV bag and tube. Was the tubing he was holding yesterday a tourniquet or an IV? I would guess not an IV, because whatever happened had just happened. It would be funny if I called it right for the wrong reason, though.

[fresburger]

BD without headgear today? Is this a first?

[Mithras]

Yup. I assumed it was part of his skull and they just changed the coverings.

[fresburger]

Just an FYI:

Fresno Bee didn't publish Doonesbury today because of a swear word in the comic.

I'm glad there is an Internet.