Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 06, 2012

He does stutter when he talks about the war.

Jeff, stop opening your mouth before you put your foot in it.

Who’s cooler than Leo?

Next Jeff will take his book and shove it under Leo’s nose. “Here, read this!”

Leo is just setting Jeff up for a mighty fall … I can feel it.

Keep talkin’ your bull****, Jeff. Publicly hang yourself with your own delusions. I’m just waiting for his publishers to turn on him and sue him from fraud. Whatta loser.

I assume Toggle means he served in Afghanistan, was wounded there, then blown up in Iraq. I don’t recall seeing Toggle till we saw him in Iraq, and I guess GT is backfilling his history and making it relevant to the current political situation.

I noticed that with Ray as well some time ago. There seems to be a fair bit of retconning going on to fit the characters to more topical situations.

If the Empire had invaded Iran already, we’d perhaps have had him there as well.

FACEPALM!!

gmartin997 – We didn’t meet Leo until he was driving BD’s Humvee in Iraq. There is nothing to say that he didn’t serve a previous tour in Afghanistan – many vets have been on both fronts.

Please, SueB, can the “hero” talk. Leo is not a hero. He was a soldier who got seriously injured while doing his job in a corrupt & unjustified occupation, and now he is recovering.

He is my favorite of the new Doonesbury generation, however, and he & Melissa are two great creations. It troubles me slightly that they were both people who made the poor decision to join the military, but one can hardly blame Trudeau. When one lives in a super-militarized culture, one is likely to find interesting characters in the military.

Toggle’s not some idiot in a bar with something to prove. I doubt he feels compelled to take Jeff down a notch.

Alex might say something to half-Uncle Stupidhead, but Jeff is slated for permanent success, Uncle Duke style.

ne7minder55’s high school buddies sound like a right pair of sociopaths. Toggle is very nice indeed, but Jeff is funnier.

Leo wouldn’t hurt a fly. But maybe Jeff will feel like an self-centered idiot all on his own (causing him to have writer’s block).

’It’s ‘Tommy this; and ’Tommy that’…but a thin red line of ‘eroes’ when the drums begin to roll…’

We have a congrep reep who gets lit and tells stories at the VFW about rescuing downed fliers with a helicopter..

he was a pretty good decent ferry pilot.Then he started having his picture taken next to a 104…and now swears he’s fully-chopper checked out.. quite a few guys know better.

He’s just a reep, he BSS a lot. You know, Republican.

Today’s is a great GT classic. Jeff and Toggle are opposites, the good against the evil in us. Toggle has no need to protect himself or have someone protect him from Jeff. He’s above it all. “No, it…OK.” An “Ecce Homo” moment. He’s GT’s Alexei Karamazov. The holy innocent. He’s the second of GT’s characters to emerge from our middle eastern hell as a so much more human being than what they had been before they went in.When they first hooked up, I thought, what does she see in him? Now I’m thinking the other way around.

There’s no way Jeff would get a comeuppance. It would ruin his character. His character could never become that aware. He’s portrayed as way too self-delusional. He’ll never get it. Did you notice Toggle said a complete sentence without stuttering the other day? It would be easier to give his character more depth if his ability to talk slowly returned.

the talker and the walker

I seem to remember Toggle speaking a complete sentence once before – in a coffee shop to some gun-toting goofballs. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but he said something really great and Alex was impressed.

Found it!

http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/05/04/doonesbury-characters-in-starbucks-again-with-people-open-carrying-guns/

The guys I know back from Iraq roll their eyes at the big talkers, they don’t beat them up.

So why isn’t Jeff entertaining in his new mega-crib?

perhaps the book ain’t selling as well as he thought?

Karen Dyer is exactly right: “There’s no way Jeff would get a comeuppance. It would ruin his character.”

Jeff and Leo are both Doonesbury inventions, but Leo is more interesting because he has real experiences that change him. Jeff is a narcissist who never changes. Readers who admire him for that should not expect him to respond to Leo or to anybody real.

Other than daydreaming, Jeff has found nothing to do with his life besides “bother” his parents. Leo by contrast has a full plate. He’s wide open to experience, and even takes an interest—-albeit momentary—-in Jeff’s solipsistic fantasies.

He served on both fronts, like Pat Tillman.

Comment on “T” having been in Afghanistan and Iraq: With the multiple deployments of the Troops, why could he have not served in both? I live near an Army Post with Special Forces being stationed there. Many have been to both (both the SF and the other troops at the Post) and some have Purple Hearts from both theaters of action. Not unheard of.

Very appropriate avatar. Time for you to go bother your own father.

Where are the tekkies who invented the cell phone and the mp3 player today? Working 80 hour weeks to develop the next thing, whatever that will be, while their bank accounts evaporate with inflation! Seems that fake heroes getting the money, fame and chicks, while the real hero gets a trailer and a grunt job, is not all that unrealistic. It comes from too much work and not enough seeing and thinking.Many millions of people today live under the regimen based around a Book, and their cry for freedom is really what attracted the Americans to go in. How else could the shackle ever be broken off their necks?

We have an NG “lifer and fraud” “Jeff”, who claims all sorts of weird stories about being “a green beret” in ‘Nam, and sent on secret missions. Couple months ago he was finally jailed for “abusing” his wives, and kids. Hope Jeff isn’t headed THAT direction in the future.

Next to “Toggle”, my favorite Doonsebury character was Phred, named my first cockatiel after him. It took 30 years for me to even admit to people I’d been in ’Nam. Then it became a reason to “challenge” right wing chickenhawks, not with “war stories”, just the fact of “been there, done that”. Now my son is a disabled veteran of Iraq and other “places” after 13 years in the service, five years doing for real what Jeff only dreams about. “Real stories” are reserved only for other folks who were really there, or maybe our shrinks, and even that, reluctantly.

Suspect Leo will be tolerant of Jeff, but still “put him in his place”.

To quote Leo from May 2, 2010, “sometimes find voice.” He can at times make a statement without stuttering, especially when he is trying to make a point.He told Joannie yesterday about his lack of knowledge regarding who his father is without stuttering.

Excellent choice of avatar – you display the same disconnect from reality and narcissistic redirecting of the storyline to your own concerns that makes Jeff so entertaining.Newsflash: in a global market, with 7 billion consumers, the US President doesn’t set oil prices, or even meaningfully influence them. Except, perhaps, to shoot them upwards by starting wars for oil – eg., Iraq.

Leo should say something to Jeff like, “I EARNED this eye patch. See?” And with that, remove the patch and let Jeff see his little fantasy world isn’t really so glamorous.

The reason the oil prices are high is because of speculators bidding the price up because of tensions in the Middle East. Current supplies are plentiful and demand is down. The Saudi’s are keeping the production up to make up for any short fall caused by the sanctions against Iran. Domestic production is at the highest level in 8 years.Do you think the domestic producers sell the oil at lower price to their US customers than whatever the global market price?The same people who bashing Obama over what the price of gas is, are also bashing for not supporting an Israeli attack on Iran. Can you imagine what the price of gas would be if Israel did attack Iran? The fall out of the attack would be an all out war in the Middle East and gas rationing at home.

Keep your fingers crossed, it might be a rough season.

Jeff’s hint that Leo’s eyepatch is just an affectation is beyond cruel, but Leo isn’t letting that bother him. Jeff is indeed a narcissist, but his remarks seem to be coming from someone who knows he’s a loser, who desperately wants attention

, etc. Must be a terrible place to be in.

guys who were in country don’t talk about it

Now we know more of what Jeff if really like when we see his interaction with Leo. Before it was more of a guessing game as to his inner convictions and his “worth” in our eyes.

All the guys i have ever met that were genuine heroes were humble and didn’t want to talk about it in any case. The guys that were awarded VC’s in particular are generally like this. The media often have trouble accessing them for interviews as they would rather not talk about it.

Not those Giants. I took pictures of AT&T Park, including the statues, when I was out in Frisco.

People seem to forget that the US and it’s allies had a military presence in Afghanistan since shortly after 9/11 – long before Iraq. It’s not unlikely that Toggle did a tour there there before being transferred to Iraq. I have a cousin, long term military, who did tours in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and then Afghanistan again. Basically, he spent well over 10 years in and out of War Zones (mostly in) before they transferred him to train new recruits.

the vets (Viet Nam) I know never came back. their bodies are here, but their reality is still “there”, their dead comrades more real to them than the everyday people they interact with. One of them, while sharing a meal, may see his hand being blown away as I speak. He never gets close to anyone because a combat friend’s head got blown to pieces in the middle of a conversation they were having. the other is a Scrabble champion with tattoos all over his body, and the third lives in a group home, heavily medicated, wondering why anyone would have come into his room and stolen his teeth when he was out at the V.A.