Why so down in the mouth?

Doonesbury by Gary Trudeau (date unknown, but it was a long,
long time ago- as indicated by their youthful campus appearances!)

As I was about to graduate from college many years ago, there appeared in the Sunday comics of our local paper one of my favorite Doonesbury strips. That's probably because it echoed my angst at the future. Standing on the edge of the abyss of job, career, family -- those things that comprise "real life" -- I, too, was about to leap, and things seemed dismal. Maybe that was partly because I'd majored in economics.

But the comics that particular Sunday morning showed a very young Mike Doonesbury and Zonker Harris just hangin' out on campus, as they so often did back in those days, when a preppie looking kid passed by looking especially glum.

Zonker couldn't let him pass without querying, "Hey! Who are you, and why are you looking so down in the mouth?" Turns out the kid, "Jim", was about to graduate and embark on his career two days later with a job at the First National Bank in New York.

Hearing this, Zonker apologizes to the kid saying, "Oh, gee, hey, look I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassed for asking...I..." to which Jim responds, "It's o.k. Really. Don't blame yourself...there's no way you could have known."

As the kid walks off, head hanging, Zonker is heard to say to Doonesbury, "I feel just awful."

"You didn't know, man, you didn't know," is Doonesbury's consoling reply.

It's one of only two Doonesbury strips I ever clipped and saved. Newsprint that's yellowed from 30+ years, it's still in remarkable condition otherwise.

Well, recently, I'd been reading of tremendous budget cuts being made here upon stateside army bases. Civilians are being laid off. Equipment in need of repair is going unrepaired unless it's being deployed to Iraq. From the sounds of it, the army is being made to "eat itself" at the cost of stateside preparedness of its ordnance.

But the cost of the war isn't being extracted solely from equipment being cannabalized and left unrepaired to maintain workable materiel for our army in Iraq. There's a tremendous burden being placed on our army's personnel as well. A great fatigue is setting in among our military. They, like their equipment, are being cannibalized out of a weariness from their overextension. And that's manifesting in an angst for a future of unending wars. This was revealed during an encounter that took place just a couple of days ago.

You see, this past Friday I got this strange sense of Doonesbury déjà vu as I listened to an experience my wife and a friend had during a downtown lunch hour peace vigil outside our local federal courthouse. As she told of it, I was reminded of this particular Doonesbury strip. Except her story wasn't as funny.

Picketing against the war as she and a small but extremely dedicated group do every Friday of every week, month, year until this crazy war insanity is ended, she noticed some hesitancy in an approaching passerby. Dressed in desert camouflage fatigues topped off with a black beret, this "Jim" was obviously a soldier.

Perhaps it was just curiosity, or maybe some compulsion to interact with this group of protestors that made him slow his pace as he was passing. Sensing this, my wife asked how he was doing. "Have you been to Iraq?" was another question lobbed at him.

As Jim paused to talk, his story unfolded. "Yes," he had been in Iraq. He had been among the initial wave of the military's shock and awe "liberators" in 2003. But that wasn't his only Iraq "tour" (you gotta love military vernacular!). He returned for a second. And each time he was injured in the line of duty while there. Although they didn't learn how or the extent of his injuries, they did learn that Jim, sadly, is on orders to redeploy to Iraq for a third time this October! (I became visibly livid at this news.)

My wife and a fellow demonstrator learned Jim was just coming from court. He is involved in a child custody case stemming from the dissolution of his marriage, rooted in his absences while in Iraq. There was a sadness about him and, as my wife described it, a vulnerability in his eyes.

Jim related that he and his fellow soldiers are being put into very bad situations in Iraq; of his sense there is no reason for us to be there; of his and the majority of his peer's disillusionment with the war and the total waste of it all.

He seemed interested in some of the alternatives given him by the group. Things like "A Guide to Military Discharges" as offered by the GI Rights Hotline and website. But I suspect, being a responsible parent concerned for his child, Jim will do the responsible thing, i.e., his duty as Uncle Sam expects, or I should say demands.

As he departed with information in hand provided him by the anti-war group, hugs were exchanged with the directive from the group to, "Take care of yourself." Both my wife and her friend were moved by their talk with Jim. To know there are many like him who are tired of this war. To have been able to offer alternative suggestions.

I imagined my wife turning to her fellow protestor afterwards and saying, "I feel just awful," to which her partner probably responded ala Mike Doonesbury, "You didn't know, man, you didn't know." But neither of them did.