The comic strip Doonesbury has weighed in heavily on the second Gulf War, stationing one of its main characters, BD, there and having him sent home after his leg was blown off in an attack. His friend, Ray, is still there. Recently, <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/">The Sandbox</a> has appeared on the Doonesbury web site, which, in its own words: <bq>...[is focused] not on policy and partisanship ... but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. The Sandbox is a clean, lightly-edited debriefing environment where all correspondence is read, and as much as possible is posted. And contributors may rest assured that all content, no matter how robust, is currently secured by the First Amendment.</bq> As with any shared blog, results are mixed, but on the whole? Much better than expected ... with some really good writing, observation and insight. If the Republicans actually read Doonesbury, they would be pointing a quivering finger at these journals and screeching "See?!!? Our troops are smart." Even if Karl Rove does read this site, he sure as hell isn't going to quote from it to his minions because the general theme isn't very supportive of the shallow picture described by simpletons like Bush. After reading most of the entries from the first couple of weeks, here are some excerpts that were especially interesting and/or well-written: <dl dt_class="field"> <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2006/11/a_closer_look.html" author="SGT Roy Batty">A Closer Look</a> <div><bq>What's really surprising are the bedrooms. The rest of the house is barren and dirt poor, but the bedrooms are almost opulent. Beautiful Afghan rugs cover on the floor, and Bedouin-style tent fabric hangs from the ceilings. The beds are covered with silk comforters, and one of the rooms actually has a crystal chandelier hanging from bare log rafters. Each room has a small TV, even though the house has no electricity. I feel like a thief as I peer under the beds and open the dresser drawers, revealing brightly woven women's dresses.</bq> Not surprisingly, it's the soldiers who make the effort to learn some Arabic that start to see Iraqis as human beings. These are the ones who have sympathy for a family wanting to hide its stash of weapons to keep it safe from confiscation---these families don't see Americans as the most dangerous thing around anymore.</div> <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2006/10/doha.html" author="CAPT Matt Smenos">Doha</a> <div><bq>A fluttering wave of colorful, translucent robes settles around me like butterflies, and the smiling faces of a dozen children, boys in ceremonial caps and girls with their first veils, who have discovered a white-skinned giant with yellow hair and mirror-eyes. They pet my skin and knead my shoulders. They poke hesitantly at my lenses and chatter at me with earnest questions I do not understand. They giggle and push each other at me, as if I might swallow one of them.</bq> This captain recounts his furlough in Doha (the capital of Qatar) on the last day of Ramadan.</div> <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2006/10/plastic.html" author="CH (CPT) Brad P. Lewis">My Fork</a> <div><bq>...[j]ust before taking off again for parts unknown, [my wife] bought me a fork! It's not a very fancy one. Neither is it a girly fork. It's perfect. It has a nice big handle that's a manly black and silver; it's easy to hold on to, with perfectly straight and smooth tines. I love my fork. So now when I go to eat breakfast or lunch or dinner or just an afternoon snack, I reach into my pocket and pull out my little friend...and we enjoy a meal together. There's no place like home, even when it's the size of a fork.</bq>It's possible that it is stories like this that convince people that war is somehow good. This young man has shucked (at least for a while) the teachings of a consumerist culture and focused on the essentials---he is now an American whose day is made by a fork. This is the kind of anti-materialism and asceticism America needs more of, but it should be achievable without war.</div> <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2006/10/the_enemyname_a.html" author="Adam Tiffen (AirborneJD)">The Enemy</a> <div><bq quote_style="none">The man looks at me, his jaw working in anger. For a brief second, I get the impression that he is going to attack, and then suddenly, as if the energy has gone out of him, his shoulders slump slightly and he looks down at his brother's body. "Can you help me move him to my vehicle?" I can tell that it was painful for him to ask me for assistance. Looking steadily at the man standing before me, his face half cloaked in the shadows, I consider his request. Part of me goes out to the man in sympathy. For the loss of a brother. And then I remember all of the bodies of innocent civilians that my men have found rotting in the sun, their hands bound behind their backs, and their eyes blindfolded, before they were shot in the head by insurgents that had suspected them of helping us. This man is an insurgent. His brother had tried to kill Americans.</bq> These men are so clearly torn, so clearly overwhelmed by a situation that no one can understand and everyone wants to escape. The only way to deal with it---and absolve yourself so you can sleep at night---is to simplify and pigeonhole, to block out some facts and blend others together to create brand new ones. An initial empathy is carefully considered, then swept aside---albeit with chagrin---because innocents have died. It matters not that the man before him may or may not have had anything to do with the situation floating before his mind's eye---it is better to suppress the empathy in exchange for the healing feeling of a world that makes sense, if only for a brief moment.</div> <a href="http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2006/10/hamid.html" author="CAPT Doug Traversa, USAF">Hamid</a> <div><bq>Pakistan was so green, so beautiful. When it rained in the spring, it was warm and lovely. I remember once it was raining and I put on my raincoat, and my friends and I walked three miles in the rain to a cafe. It was dark, and there were lights everywhere, and they shone off the water, the rain, the streets. We sat and drank tea and watched the beautiful girls go by. But here in Afghanistan there is nothing. We must be inside by 8 PM. There is no electricity. There is nothing to do. I wish I could leave.</bq> The quote above is from the captain's translater, Hamid, who is Pakistani. On this day, Hamid opens up and tells him all about his life at home. Stationed in Afghanistan and yearning to get back home, the caption, though having lovingly recorded the details of Hamid's life, can't empathize with Hamid's dream---because it is so much less than the standard American one. He sums up: <iq>When Pakistan is your Garden of Eden, you know you are at the very bottom of what life has to offer.</iq> This is rather harsh, but reflects more the distance between cultures---to some, the rainy café seems like a nice way to pass the time; to others, it's missing a plasma TV and an X-Box.</div> </dl>