Here’s an interesting item from the military newspaper Stars And Stripes:
Love him or hate him, Garry Trudeau, the man responsible for the “Doonesbury” comic strip, is doing his part to help wounded troops and their families.
Trudeau is donating all his proceeds from the sale of his newly released book “The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time” to the Fisher House Foundation. Also, Andrews McMeel Publishing, the book’s publisher, is contributing 10 percent of its take from the book to Fisher House.
Considering that the $9.95 book has been out less than a month and already has sold thousands of copies, the financial benefit for the Fisher House could be substantial.
Fisher House offers family members of wounded troops temporary housing at little or no cost during their loved one’s hospitalization. With locations at 32 veterans and military hospitals throughout the United States and in Landstuhl, Germany, Fisher House is largely funded through private donations.
“The Long Road Home” tells the story of B.D., a popular “Doonesbury” character who, while serving in Fallujah, Iraq, is wounded and has his left leg amputated. The comic strip follows B.D. along his journey of injury and recovery — from Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to the amputee ward at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
The book is a reprint of the “Doonesbury” story line that began in March 2004 and was featured in roughly 1,400 daily newspapers.
“He [Trudeau] has a genuine caring and concern for these kids,” said Jim Weiskopf, vice president of communications for Fisher House Foundation. “In his own journalistic manner, he wanted to tell the American public what these amputees have gone through, and he’s really done it well.”
Not bad praise for Trudeau, an opponent of the war in Iraq, considering it’s coming from Weiskopf, a retired Army colonel. In addition, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former naval aviator who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, wrote the foreword to Trudeau’s 93-page book.
But I thought Karl Rove suggested that people like Trudeau were happy when American troops were hurt in the field?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.