We just landed in Washington DC from our trip overseas to meet with and draw for U.S. troops in Germany and the Middle East. Now that we have safely left the area, we can reveal where we were.

After leaving Germany we traveled to Kuwait City, Kuwait and drew in several FOB camps including Camp Buerhing and Camp Virginia, traveling by road vehicle. On Monday we flew out to Iraq on a military plane and spent the next two days visiting FOB camps like Speicher, Q-West, Marez, Victory, Liberty and Slayer near some well know places like Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul and Baghdad.

The above video was posted by Spc. Angela Widener and shows our visit to Camp Marez in Iraq. If you have trouble playing the video (If you see the word “EMBED” and some code instead of a picture) do the following: click the center “Play” button, then click the arrow next to the word “EMBED” on the top, then click the play button again.

Much more later.

Our NCS Cartoonists USO tour is almost a wrap. Today we depart on the long trip home, leaving the combat zone after several days of hopping about drawing the troops with the USO.

Yesterday we had three separate stops about a large base complex and the response was really overwhelming. Two of the meet and greets were with the whole group and then we again split up into two groups for the last signing. The soldiers and personnel we have visited really seem to be glad we came and almost everyone who came up to us after waiting in a long line started out by thanking us very earnestly for our efforts. That’s funny as it is we who are grateful and feel privileged to be able to get the opportunity to see and visit with these brave men and women. What we are doing is such a small thing compared to the sacrifices and challenges these men and women have given. I am mystified that a silly little cartoon drawn for them and a little conversation recieves so much gratitude, but I am glad we can bing some smiles to some faces and brighten up an otherwise arduous day.

I’d definitely be worried if this guy was defending our freedom.

Just a quick sketch I did while we were waiting for our transport out of Kuwait and into the combat zone on Monday night. Some of the guys brought scanners and I was able to get a quick scan of it for the blog.

My personal photos are still being reviewed but here are some USO approved images from our time in Landstuhl:

More to be found here. All photos are USO Photos by Jackie Zettles

While I’m somewhat incommunicado on the Persian Gulf USO tour here is another segment of the infamous 1993 live caricature demo video. This time the subject is Jaleel White, who is best known (okay… only known) for his nerdy character Steve Urkel from the TV Show “Family Matters”.

It’s early morning in the Persian Gulf and our group of National Cartoonists Society cartoonists are preparing to board Blackhawk helicopters to go to various operation bases “down range” to draw for active troops. Last night we flew in on a C-17 transport plane… that was quite a story I will share when I write this all up after returning to the States.

Again, we are not allowed to say where we specifically are due to US military security restrictions. Once we have left the area we are in safely, we can say where and when we were and share those stories. Hopefully I can post some of my own pics once approved, but in the meantime the USO has some photos of our group on their website.

Exciting stuff, but it’s meeting the brave men and women serving our country we are all looking most forward to.

Our group of ten National Cartoonists Society cartoonists spent Sunday visiting multiple U.S. bases in Kuwait, drawing for and visiting with the troops. According to USO and military blogging and twittering guidelines, I cannot be specific about where we are currently at or where we are going to, but I can name places we have visited and left from safely. I also cannot post any photos until they are approved by the USO for release. I am hoping to have some pictures I submitted for approval available to share before our trip is complete, but once we have returned I will be blogging extensively about our experience and should have lots of pictures, etc.

In the meantime, I can say that yesterday our group visited Camp Arifjan where we were briefed by the head of the U.S. Army MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) about the MWR’s efforts in the Persian Gulf and the logisitics of the bases we would be visiting. We were then split into two groups and visited two bases each. Our group consisted of myself, Jeff Keane, Jeff Bacon, Mike Peters and Chip Bok as well as USO tour leaders and photographers. We stopped at Camp Buerhing and Camp Virginia and spent time in their USO centers meeting both bases station personnel and soldiers who were staying there either training and prepping for deployment into the theater or were decompressing in preparation for going back home after a tour of duty down range.

These soldiers work incredibly hard under conditions of great stress to defend our liberties and to combat the forces of terrorism to help keep not only the citizens of the United States but all the world safer. It is a great privilege to be able to give back in our small way and bring a few smiles to their faces.

More later when time and USO protocol allows.

Here’s a link to a news story in the Stars and Stripes about our visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany prior to our shipping out to do more of the same in the Persian Gulf. There are a number of pictures. The polish soldier in the pictures really did laugh so hard we thought he was going to keel over after I showed him my caricature of him. I haven’t killed a subject yet… although a few have thrown up and one peed their pants once. Fortunately the guy didn’t die but he might need fresh stitches.

I was using “the facilities” in the Frankfurt airport while waiting to board our plane for the Persian Gulf when I was once again surprised by the “little differences” between Europe and the U.S.

Germany has some of the greatest engineering on planet earth, but when it comes to making their toilet seats into robotic, self cleaning, spinning disks of doom they might have gone too far. I was in the middle of relieving myself when the commode I was using suddenly came to life and started doing the hokey pokey as shown:

I was unnerved but didn’t panic and hose down the area. Still you don’t mess with the fragile psychology/deeply learned behavior of relieving ones self in a public restroom. Lesser men might have left that stall with a soaking wet pants leg and a scarred psyche.

Q: What you and your fellow cartoonists are doing on your trip to visit the troops is fantastic. How did that all come about?

A: Although he would be quick to try and pass off some of the credit to others, the driving force behind the National Cartoonist Society’s visits to wounded soldiers, veteran’s hospitals and more recently overseas troop locations is Navy Times/Broadside cartoonist Jeff Bacon.

Jeff is a retired naval captain and started his strip “Broadside” in the Navy Times in 1986 while still on active duty. The strip is about the lighter side of life in the Navy, and is well known among service men and women. After joining the NCS and attending a couple of Reubens, Jeff stood up at the business meeting in 2005 and asked what the NCS was doing for our military who were risking their lives so we could draw cartoons and enjoy our way of life. Jeff isn’t the kind of guy to just ask what can be done… he was challenged to come up with something that could be done and he rose to the task magnificently.

Initially there was no funding, so local cartoonists were organized to visit wounded warriors at places like Walter Reed and the Bathesda Naval Hospital in DC and the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where many of the soldiers injured in the combat zone get treated. Visits were also organized at smaller VA hospitals in other parts of the country. Cartoonists paid for their own expenses at first and the cost prohibited larger trips or travel, but the visits were very well received. The NCS was very much behind his efforts, especially president Jeff Keane (The Family Circus), in no small part because his father and The Family Circus‘s creator Bil Keane visited troops with other cartoonists during the Vietnam war. In fact the NCS was really created out of cartoonists trips to visit the soldiers and do “chalk talks” back in the 1940′s, so this was the organization’s real roots.

Eventually Jeff (Bacon) sought funding for the visits, and started trying to get enough financial support for a trip overseas to Landstuhl, Germany and the medical facilities there where the injured soldiers go immediately from the theater after being hurt. In October of last year, Jeff managed to raise enough funds all on his own to sponsor a trip for eight NCS cartoonists to DC/Landstuhl. I was one of those who went on that trip.

Our time with the soldiers on that visit made a real impression on the USO and the military brass there. We have been told numerous times that of all the celebrities that come and visit them, our group has been the most talked about and best received. I suspect it’s because we provide a lot more than just a photo op and a few minutes of banter. We spend time with these folks and create something unique on the spot, just for them, while we get to really hear their story and let them know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice.

The USO took notice and through Jeff’s continued efforts and those of some of the top leaders of the USO, later trips have been sponsored almost entirely by the USO and the Entertainment section of the military, including another to Landstuhl with a different group of cartoonists last March. The cartoonists are going to be making regular trips overseas thanks to the success of our first few visits. This trip into the combat zone (“down range” as they say), which includes the original eight cartoonists from the first overseas tour and the additions of Garry Trudeau and Mike Ramierez, would not have been possible without the major involvement and sponsorship of the USO.

More importantly, none of it would be possible without the tireless efforts of Jeff Bacon. Thank you, Jeff.

Thanks to Grant Jonen for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!