Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 17, 2010

Now that’s a good friend. I wonder if Mel will ever forgive her for it …

Wise chap. You can tell by her glasses that’s she’s sincere. She has trustworthy glasses.

Also, in panel 3, she has Vulcan ears…

Yeah, I was thinking, WTF? They’re enlisting Vietnamese elves now?

Roz definitely has Mel’s back , especially now she understands her previously bewildering (to Roz) reactions. A great friend, and someone people like Mel need! Glad to see she went to a female chaplain, don’t think Mel would talk to a male one (he would also rank her as Chaplains are officers….)

Not all of us have a direct line.

I think 1:1 with the Big Guy is great, but no substitute for a trained counselor. That’s why so many clergy take courses in counseling.

I doubt my comments will change anything in the story but I just want to point out a couple of things that would actually happen in real life, at least in the Marines. 1) a maint chief would NEVER let a mechanic get reassigned, in aviation, maintenance drives ops not the other way around 2) mechanics don’t do ops, mechanics have too much valuable training to “waste” in ops.

As a Senior NCO, I would be fighting to keep my mechanic where he/she does the best work, on the line.

@ diver……Semper Fi, Marine!

Then there’s the Ann Coulter ad on the same page. And we know she’s just not on the same page as this comic.

Wow, Rabbit, how 1810 of you! How about we have everyone act like a grown up and behave with respect to each other? That’s almost as SF as your time machine suggestion, but more doable.

Thats right why should men have to control themselves in battle? (Thats sarcasm) But if I had my way there would not be anyone in battle. I had a brother over in Iraq and after a while you get used to tthe shivers that go through your body every time an unlisted number popped up.

I think that is a great idea, Rabbit, and we’ll implement it just as soon as you tell us where we are going to find 250,000 qualified young men to take the place of the women who are serving in the active and Reserve components today.

Take your time….we’ll wait.

A Public Broadcasting System story on a young soldier who was raped by her commanding officer was aired the other evening. First aired in 2007. According to that, one in sixteen women in the military were raped. A recent news release had that number at one in eight. Not a good reflection on our military. The story is supposed to be available on pbs.org .

@diver710 - True, so true. In Vietnam 67-70 - The air wingers were so important to what we were doing from Con Thien to Que Son that the man rotated platoons of us from the bush for a week at a time to man the Teeny Weenie Airlines perimeter on the south edge of the DaNang Airbase. Great duty, we got incountry R&R and mess hall chow delivered by the air wing and they got to work.

Downside? After the week was over we became very, very glad the air wingers did their jobs so well. Nothing finer than the exhaust heat of an F4 or A4 pulling out of a low down bomb run out in Dodge City or in the Arizona or on the island.

J22; http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/421/

cfine,, Thanks for the link.

roshayrabbit, You do have a valid point. I think that today we have too few people who have witnessed the effects of war and this helps to promote further violence. I am against war.

My solution to a dispute between countries would be to put the leaders into a locked room, each with a pistol, knife and paper and pen. Don’t unlock the door until the matter is resolved one way or the other.

Content but not intent, obviously.

Happens when they give power to a bunch of testosterone challenged old children as well, Rabbit.

Hangar 4, Bay 3… What better place to search for theoratical battle buddies.

I know Roz is being a friend, but Mel is going to kill her.

Hey Justice, what did they say the rape rate at Ghraib was?

After Lyndie England, how can anybody trust a pixie again? And she’s mo real than Mel.

I did not hear it mentioned. The story says that one in four were assaulted /raped last year. The following is a link to the video. http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/421/video-seg1.html

It is sad but recommended watching. Lots of similarities to Mel’s story including the Chaplain.

Diver710: “1) a maint chief would NEVER let a mechanic get reassigned, in aviation, maintenance drives ops not the other way around 2) mechanics don’t do ops, mechanics have too much valuable training to “waste” in ops.”

Good points and I hadn’t thought about it. During my time in the Army, I frequently saw people working outside their MOS in S-1, S-3, ect., and I do remember one mis-utilized aviation mechanic in the personnel shop of a division headquarters, but he was sent there as soon as he was assigned to the post and never even made it to an aviation unit (that was in the 1980s). Generally the mechanics I met that that were working outside their MOS were the wheeled vehicle types, and I always kind of wondered if there was a reason the maintenance NCO/Officer didn’t try harder to keep them.

You say only men should join the military. How about only women should join the military? It’s just as logical an argument.

Thanks rabbit – this is similar to what I had my Women’s Studies students listen to around this same period on NPR.

“Men are programmed, in their genetic formula, to be the adventurers, the heroes, the conquerors, and the killers. Women are programmed, most of them, to stay home, raise children, and secure the environment by orderliness and resolving conflicts”

You are a blinkered idiot.

That’s no ordinary PBS link either, I hasten to add - it’s for the wonderful program NOW which, along with Moyers Journal, is ending at the end of the month.

It is a world most unfair to be losing these two informative and enlightening shows, whilst the raw sewage of FOX (and the rest of the corporate-controlled MSM for that matter) oozes putridly on.