Synopses & Reviews
Launched as a military blog (or milblog) by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau in October 2006, The Sandbox is an online forum through which service members in Afghanistan and Iraq share their stories with readers here at home. In hundreds of fascinating and compelling posts, soldiers write passionately, eloquently, and movingly of their day-to-day lives, of their mission, and of the drama that unfolds daily around them.
A dog adopts a unit on patrol in Baghdad and guards its flank; a soldier chronicles an epic day of close-call encounters with IEDs; an Afghan translator talks earnestly with his American friend about love and theology; a dad far from home meditates on time and history in the desert night under ancient stars; a Chuck Norris action figure witnesses surreal moments of humor in the cramped cab of a Humvee --Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan presents a rich outpouring of stories, from the hilarious to the thrilling to the heartbreaking, and helps us understand what so many of our countrymen are going through and the sacrifices they are making on our behalf.
- I really feel like most people look at this war as little more than a television event. How many have ever taken the time to stop and think about what we go through every day over here? The bullets, rockets, and IEDs are not the hard part. The hard part is knowing that life goes on back at home. --FC1 (SW) Anthony McCloskey
- 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 hisbrother's body. --1LT Adam Tiffen
- Out here in the desert, Time is King; the minutes are his minions and the months his sabers by which you are knighted. The King controls all that you do, when you come and go, and how long until you see your children. --Capt. Lee Kelley
- It's easy to say We have to go to war if you're not we, and it's easy to say Bring home the troops if they are not your brothers getting left behind on the return trip. --Spc. Michael O'Mahoney
Synopsis
Launched as a military blog (or "milblog") by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau in October 2006, The Sandbox is an online forum through which service members in Afghanistan and Iraq share their stories with readers here at home. In hundreds of fascinating and compelling posts, soldiers write passionately, eloquently, and movingly of their day-to-day lives, of their mission, and of the drama that unfolds daily around them.
A dog adopts a unit on patrol in Baghdad and guards its flank; a soldier chronicles an epic day of close-call encounters with IEDs; an Afghan translator talks earnestly with his American friend about love and theology; a dad far from home meditates on time and history in the desert night under ancient stars; a Chuck Norris action figure witnesses surreal moments of humor in the cramped cab of a Humvee --Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan presents a rich outpouring of stories, from the hilarious to the thrilling to the heartbreaking, and helps us understand what so many of our countrymen are going through and the sacrifices they are making on our behalf.
* I really feel like most people look at this war as little more than a television event. How many have ever taken the time to stop and think about what we go through every day over here? The bullets, rockets, and IEDs are not the hard part. The hard part is knowing that life goes on back at home. --FC1 (SW) Anthony McCloskey
* 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. --1LT Adam Tiffen
* Out here in the desert, Time is King; the minutes are his minions and the months his sabers by which you are knighted. The King controls all that you do, when you come and go, and how long until you see your children. --Capt. Lee Kelley
About the Author
For many readers, Doonesbury has long been something of a Rorschach test--they see in it what they are predisposed to see. Case in point, those who detect an antimilitary bias in the strip. It may interest--if not confuse--these critics to learn that if GBT has such a bias, the military itself has failed to notice. During the first Gulf War, the Pentagon organized a touring exhibition of the Doonesbury war strips, and during Trudeau's visit to Kuwait, where he met hundreds of soldiers, he was awarded certificates of achievement by the Ready First Brigade and the 4th Battalion 67th Armor, which made him an "honorary Bandit for life." More recently, the DOD, USO, and VA have all worked closely with Trudeau on the strips depicting B.D.'s wounding in Iraq, and Walter Reed Army Medical Center presented him with the Commander's Award for Public Service, the third-highest civilian award given by the Army.