Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 17, 2008

Toggle’s band might sell more than the latest GNR. Best Buy can make up some of their losses if they go with Toggle.

PTSD–Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Not something that you can put a band-aid on. The good thing about Iraq is that all the technology is keeping the guys alive. One of the many bad things is that there will be so many injured and maimed that the level of treatment will be sub-basement!!

Perhaps it could be cathartic.

… not an easy road to travel.

cacolley and wndrwrthg: toggle has it right; PTSD makes him and his band more effective.

“metal is PTSD” you got that right young brother! I still dream of ……. ahhh, I have talked with WWII vets who never had any channel to work thru their fears, nightmare experiences and drug and alcohol addiction. Thank God for a slowly rising conciousnes, tho much too slowly rising!

To bad the military brass still are so reluctant to accept PTSD is as wide spread as it is.

I’m telling you now if a guy like Toggle was doing vocals for a metal band it’d be awesome, and I don’t like metal. A guy with his history and his problems, pouring out his soul, I’d buy it. You have to truly live and often suffer to be good. Toggle has been there and done that. I would love to hear what he has to say.

PTSD- Post-Traumatic Stress DISORDER, not syndrome.

Thanks emmalee, I’m not always that coherent at 1:30am. The soldiers in Iraq are facing the same problems that they did in Viet Nam. The combatants don’t wear uniforms, they’re (most of them) fighting for their homeland and their way of life. Obama isn’t Superman, and I don’t expect a miracle worker to suddenly appear, but I have a lot more hopes with a Democratic president.

Toggle may be the worst Doonesbury character and this thread the most tedious

Speaking as someone who has PTSD, Toggle’s aced it.

Doonesbury’s strength is that it is topical. It has more reality than many so-called “reality” shows.

What does Trudy know about war?

Toggle has free verse nailed. Set it to music, it could work.

(Sniff,sniff) I promise as a Lib… to do EVERYTHING in my power…(knuckles turn white) to get that , that …BUSH! For doing this to you (whimper) …Toggle, because I can do that now that you have stood up in the gap for me and kept the world safe from chaos.

Nofur, I guess Mr. Trudeau knows as much as Bush..nada, nothing, zip, zero, zilch. But he seems to understand the vets coming back.

nofearpup, Dear child, exactly what is your trip? Your attempts at hurling invective fall far short of the mark. Is you life so lacking that you feel the need to lash out at those whom you deem better than youself? Relax, go for a walk and look for mushrooms, you may enjoy yourself.

You don’t have to be in war to understand it. I don’t have to drive a nail through my hand to know I wont like it. Stephen Crane, author of “The Red Badge of Courage”, a widely respected novel on the agonies of (the Civil) war, was born after the war ended. It did not stop him from having sympathy, empathy and understanding for those who have been there and done that.

There are many soldiers out there in Iraq today who despise Trudeau’s politics but respect him because of how he represents them.

Can we please stick to relevant issues CACO & Warty? Yes, Dypak no experience is necessary or I would have to keep my mouth shut. And i see that many vets from Vietnam enjoy this comic, but I wonder if he speaks half as convincingly for the post-modern generation? From that premise I can boil Trudeau’s main gist here down to another near miss on reality for the lib-set Trudeau represents.

And here I thought metal was just crap.

NoFearPup, I know what you mean about keeping your mouth shut. I was in the Army for almost 25 years but retired in 2003, before we went to Iraq. So sometimes I don’t feel like I have the right to talk along these lines. But I do know many modern era soldiers who support Trudeau. You know he had to talk to dozens of them to do research for this strip. He got so much of it right.

There are plenty of people who HAVE been in war and seem not to understand it. Airmen seem to dominate this group. When you see a pro-war vet, chances are they were doing their fighting with a control stick in their hand. I like video games so I can see where they are coming from to a point, I just have not made the jump from killing imaginary space-aliens to killing invisible people thousands of feet below me.