Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 02, 2021

Like the war, this story arc went on way too long.

The Q on his hat meant something different then than now

I think it’s about this time that BD really misses Boopsie and Sam. Know what I mean??

“The Iron Triangle.” I think I went to high school with her.

Just rereading Michael Herr’s Dispatches, after watching Apocalypse Now with my 91 year old dad (his first time, redux version). Herr quotes Westmoreland as saying he could see ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’ in ‘67 just before Tet. A guy who’s job it was to crawl thorough Phred’s complex with a knife and a pistol said ‘What doe that a$$hole know about tunnels?’

I was planting trees in the Winter/Spring of 1983. In Georgia, I stopped at an odd-looking. My next tree would be placed in the middle of a hole 2ft dia and of indeterminate depth. I was planting 2hrs and a mile from the others in the camp as they prepped.

Ain’t that something?

Can anyone tell me why Phred has a big ‘Q’ on his hat?

That’s a hole new aspect of B.D. we didn’t know about… :D

I’m wondering what the “Q” on Phred’s cap signified back then.

“Q” on the cap?

Go look up “Operation Vulture…”

One of my computer techs at Army Forces Command had been a tunnel rat. His bravery, in my opinion, far exceeded mine as a fixed wing and helo pilot. I think I would still have nightmares about that… it scares me to even imagine it.

I love it when people warn me to watch out for things I can’t possibly see.

More importantly, watch out for landmines. No doubt there are still active landmines all over Viet Nam today. And Bosnia. And Afghanistan. And any other place in the world that has experienced conflict in the last 100 years.

“Zip?’ I heard “spelunk”. :)

Is there an easy way to see the original publication date of the comic?

So ,now B D’s helmet is useful.

We won most battles, but lost the war how sad. Just like Afghanistan!

See Phred’s hat? Trudeau finally reveals who the mysterious Q is.

And, Punji Pits. Those things reportedly doubled as Toilet pits.

Joan Baez in the autobiography “And a Voice to Sing With” wrote about visiting North Vietnam during the war as a Quaker preaching peacemaking, about Nixon knowing she was there, and suddenly American bombers were strafing where she and other Americans were visiting. The Vietnamese hid them and themselves in a tunnel and as they listened to the sounds outside, a nearby one got blown up.

Funny but true. This strip is from the 1990’s too. Had .any friends come back from Nam all F’d up mentally and many with substance abuses from seeing sh*t they should not have to see. I remember the day my Draft caused came. I was so happy when that police action(?) ended. The tunnels and the “kill sticks” aet up in fields to impale you were cruelly effective.

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1973/11/09