Garry Trudeau on writing about the Army

[pecunium]

Garry Trudeau writes Doonesbury, which I like, and have for as long as I can recall (though I thought the stuff he did for a while after his sabbatical was a tad weak).

Despite that I had grave reservations when B.D. was wounded. Yes, it was timely, yes, it was honest, but I was afraid he would trivialise it. He didn't.

Now I know how he managed that.

He talked to troops. He talked to them in '90, and he talked to them today. He has e-mail correspondence from them. He recently gave a speech about how he did this.

Behind the Lines

For instance, I recently spent the day in Silver Spring, Md., at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post and a vet center, talking to two veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom who are about to leave the service and make their way back into civilian life. ...

soldiers, with the help of incredibly dedicated counselors, are trying to figure out how to live with their emotional wounds as they make the transition out of a military culture that still stigmatizes post-traumatic stress syndrome, and then into a civilian population that can't possibly understand what they've been through.

The reason that I've been listening to their stories is that my character B.D. is now at that precise point in his own life, and I need to learn about what that must feel like before I can write about it.

When and if I finally do, I have to do another terrible thing: I have to make it funny. And I have to find a way of doing so without contributing to the suffering that these young veterans are enduring.

And that, I think, is why the military has given me such access to wounded warriors and their caregivers. There are so many ways I could get it wrong, they figured, I could use all the help I could get.

So, thanks are due to GEN Sullivan, who back in '90, when he found out Doonesbury wasn't ruining morale, had the wisdom to reach out to Trudeau.

Kudos to COL Nash, who had the courage to smuggle Trudeau into Saudi Arabia, so he could see the war.

And gratitude to Trudeau, for managing to get it right.

I wish I'd been there when he was at Mologne House.

(correction: I initially misspelled Mr. Trudeau's name, it properly has two "r"s)

Comments

[stilldocked.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that. I spent part of last night going through the Doonesbury's from the Watergate era, looking to make comparisons to the current administration, and I never thought to look at the BD in Southeast Asia thread.

Thanks again.

[shelly-rae.livejournal.com]

I've long been an admirer of Trudeau's work precisely for the reasons you've uncovered here. He goes to great lengths to get the facts, the real story, and then applies a generous mix of humor & sarcasm. It's easy for most to dismiss the work of cartoonists as "unimportant" or "juvenile" ( which certainly applies to strips like Garfield--I have no idea why it's still in syndication), but artist/writers like Trudeau really do get it right.

Anon,

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Why can no one spell Garry Trudeau's name?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Because we're blind gits, and the second "r" is pretty much invisible.

TK

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Wonderful link, and post -- I really enjoyed reading your reactions to his speech.