Untold Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan

[Valerie]

Well, there is that eight year history during the Clinton administration of Al Qaeda hitting the US and its embassies repeatedly. Make what you will of that, but it indicates to me that the US wasn't exactly in any big rush to go to war.

[Valerie]

It looks as if a number of people behind "Untold Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan" will be at Virginia Comic Con November 20-21. I'm sad to say that it doesn't look like I'll be able to join them, but my signature will at least be among those on a poster we're raffling off there.

[Valerie]

Quite a few military bloggers have taken it upon themselves to talk about the upcoming book and address some of the questions and, yes, controversies about it.

www.soldiersperspective.us and www.bouhammer.com are written by soldiers who have actually contributed to "Untold Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan."

http://www.yankeemom.com/?p=1739 makes some very good mention of our plans for Virginia Comic Con, including the limited edition prints that will be available there.

[doolbnoom]

i have to admit i haven't really read this thread. now, i don't mean to offend anyone, but i try to avoid the chest-pounding "we are so great" comics. i'm no hippy, far from one, but if you ask me, a soldier gets what he/she signed up for.

my father went through WWII to defend his homeland against the Nazis. and when the u.s. invaded iraq without provocation, he knew what the iraqis were fighting for, their homeland. the u.s. troops are nothing more than a cog in a big empirical machine.

i don't hate my country, i was born here, but our "government" is screwed up (i think a dictator or monarch would be better, than you'd know who to blame), our healthcare is in shambles, etc...
i could go on and on.
democrats and republicans are the same, really. rich people in power.

obama is one of the worst "presidents" we've ever had. i've heard he is taking a ten day vacation in india and that forty-three warships are his escort, and he's traveling with three thousand people to see some indian festival of lights.
and our money is being spent on this all. he's like the oprah of politicians. i'd rather have a sharecropper's son in office, black power! (i'm white). obama isn't even really black, he doesn't even know what black is. and his wife, they're just idiots with money...

(i hope i don't get kicked off for expressing my opinion.)

[Valerie]

You won't get kicked off just for expressing your opinion. I am afraid, however, that you are judging the book unfairly just because it happens to be about our current and recent conflicts. The only opinions expressed in the book regarding the wars are those of the veterans and their loved ones who have shared their stories.

That being said, do you believe that someone who was wounded in combat deserves no help or support on the home front?

[Awesome!]

i think a dictator or monarch would be better, than you'd know who to blame

Sure you could blame them, just not publicly. (unless you are cool with you and your family disappearing)

I disagree with just about everything you said and am trying really hard to not turn this into a thing since it isn't the place to discuss politics at all.

[Superdog]

For me, as far as War Stories go, I think Vietnam is a much more fertile area considering the US soldiers were all Draftees, and forced at gun point overseas. There's an element of pathos there that any current war story just can't match.

WW2 has storytelling elements of that as well, but you also have the Nazis as the ultimate bad guys, who are more evil than any comic book villain.

America's current wars all feature volunteers, who entered war zones of their own volition and presumably were aware of the risks beforehand. I mean, sure, it sucks that people died and got their limbs blown off, but those were all risks they were perfectly willing to take beforehand.

Which isn't to say that good storytelling can't be told about the current wars, Generation Kill off the top of my head is a great TV mini-series about the war in Iraq, but it seems to me the bar is automatically a bit higher.

I might pick this up if the price is right.

[Superdog]

Well, there is that eight year history during the Clinton administration of Al Qaeda hitting the US and its embassies repeatedly. Make what you will of that, but it indicates to me that the US wasn't exactly in any big rush to go to war.

I wouldn't normally bring this kind of stuff up on this forum, but since you mentioned it the US, during the Clinton years, imposed sanctions on Iraq that are estimated to have caused the death of approx 600,000 people, bombed Somalia and bombed/occupied Yugoslavia. It's not like Clinton was some kind of peacenik who was whistling and stringing flowers.

It's hard to find a stretch of more than 2-3 years where the US doesn't go to war against someone, somewhere since the end of WW2, which is consistent regardless of president.

[doolbnoom]

You won't get kicked off just for expressing your opinion. I am afraid, however, that you are judging the book unfairly just because it happens to be about our current and recent conflicts. The only opinions expressed in the book regarding the wars are those of the veterans and their loved ones who have shared their stories.

That being said, do you believe that someone who was wounded in combat deserves no help or support on the home front?

i saw the art for the book and liked it very much. maybe the writing will be good. however...

in answer to your query, when it comes to a volunteer soldier in iraq, afghanistan, or anywhere else, in this day and age, i could care less about wounded soldiers coming home.

what about vietnam vets? they were spit on when they came home. our "powers that be" polluted an environment and them with agent orange, and, loaded the soldiers with mind altering drugs. vietnam vets came home mentally damaged and many ended up drunks and/or homeless. a few came back normal.

[doolbnoom]

Sure you could blame them, just not publicly. (unless you are cool with you and your family disappearing)

I disagree with just about everything you said and am trying really hard to not turn this into a thing since it isn't the place to discuss politics at all.

well, before the u.s. invaded iraq, it was one of the "freer" countries in the middle east. who supported hussein for years on end? america. women were more free to not wear head coverings and smoke and be done up than they are now. basically, we turned a not so terrible place into a hellhole. now the crazy terrorists have infiltrated that country too.

i understand we are all here because we love comics. but when the hell is the right time and place to discuss politics? bombing Yugoslavia (Clinton) for a day more than the Nazis did, my, my... how quickly we forget. or, like many americans, we only knew the "bad" guys are what the news tells us. americans need to crack open more geography and history books and learn about the world.

[Awesome!]

americans need to crack open more geography and history books and learn about the world.

I'm just going to quote this and bow out of the thread. Keep on fighting the power and rooting for a dictatorship in America man. Hope it works out for you.

[Valerie]

Superdog, you're now talking about "Untold Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan" as if we're telling fictional war stories. We're not trying to mine the troops for ideas for our own stories, but giving them opportunities to share theirs.

Fictionalized accounts of the Vietnam war have been done and overdone, but we are considering anthologies of true stories from the conflicts in Vietnam and Korea. And the Vietnam vets I know are hopeful that returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will not face the same hostile treatment at home that they did.

We've also begun work on "Untold Stories from Ground Zero and Beyond" to benefit emergency workers and their families. This brings me to another point. Firefighters and EMT's are also volunteers, often in the most literal sense. They know the risks they face. Of course they train hard for every eventuality and gear up for whatever hazards they may face to ensure safety on the scene, but still too many fall or are injured or sickened in the line of duty. But because they're volunteers, does that mean they and their families don't deserve help and support?

Awesome! I hope you don't bow out of this thread.

Everyone just needs to know this book is not about politics. Buying the book is not supporting the war. It's not buying into propoganda. It is about showing the troops to be human individuals. It's about supporting organizations that serve veterans and their families in their times of need.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions- though racism and historical revisionism get on my nerves. However, if this thread becomes one of political arguments, that will risk misrepresenting the book, and I really do not want that to happen. Instead of arguing politics and calling a book you haven't even read propoganda, perhaps it's a better idea to give the book a chance.

[Brandon Hanvey]

Please stick to talking about the comic.

If you want to discuss and argue unrelated politics, you are free to do so on the Community board.

[Superdog]

Superdog, you're now talking about "Untold Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan" as if we're telling fictional war stories. We're not trying to mine the troops for ideas for our own stories, but giving them opportunities to share theirs.

Fictionalized accounts of the Vietnam war have been done and overdone, but we are considering anthologies of true stories from the conflicts in Vietnam and Korea. And the Vietnam vets I know are hopeful that returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan will not face the same hostile treatment at home that they did.

We've also begun work on "Untold Stories from Ground Zero and Beyond" to benefit emergency workers and their families. This brings me to another point. Firefighters and EMT's are also volunteers, often in the most literal sense. They know the risks they face. Of course they train hard for every eventuality and gear up for whatever hazards they may face to ensure safety on the scene, but still too many fall or are injured or sickened in the line of duty. But because they're volunteers, does that mean they and their families don't deserve help and support?

Awesome! I hope you don't bow out of this thread.

Everyone just needs to know this book is not about politics. Buying the book is not supporting the war. It's not buying into propoganda. It is about showing the troops to be human individuals. It's about supporting organizations that serve veterans and their families in their times of need.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions- though racism and historical revisionism get on my nerves. However, if this thread becomes one of political arguments, that will risk misrepresenting the book, and I really do not want that to happen. Instead of arguing politics and calling a book you haven't even read propoganda, perhaps it's a better idea to give the book a chance.

That is a good point, as I just said Generation Kill is a real life account and I loved that. I just finished reading It Was the War of The Trenches, a French Graphic Novel about WW1, and that was ostensibly true incidents and was quite good as well. Maybe I was being too cynical at first.

[doolbnoom]

i have to read some of garth ennis' stuff... i've ordered from my lcs "the Night Witches" which I've read about in WWii books. women flyers in hodge-podge aircraft bombing the Nazis.

the ground zero comic is more "human" to me. a writer can get more emotion and the struggle characters go through....

incredibly enough, i think the real heroes are the firefighters, cops, and emts who perished, as well as the office workers on 9/11.

they even had a video that they showed, but not anymore, of office workers jumping and hitting the ground, like, it was tons of people. just as hideous as the beheadings by terrorists from iraq that they had on the Net. and did you know of all the countries spouting democracy, France's last beheading by guillotine was in 1975? crazy.....

but i'll try to keep this comic based.... (that's why we're all here)

i'll take my "opinions" to the community forum.