The 2009 NCS Cartoonist USO Tour band members:

Our 8 day USO tour began at a Washington DC area hotel on Wednesday, October 14th where most of our band met, had a quick dinner and talked about our upcoming odyssey. As usual I had a job I had to finish up that kept me working in the hotel room until 4 a.m., so I was already exhausted when we boarded a USO bus on Thursday morning to go to the Bathesda Naval Hospital and then to Walter Reed for our first visits with wounded soldiers. This part of the trip was familiar to us, as we had done the same thing almost exactly a year earlier.

Thursday, October 15th:

The Band at Bathesda Naval Hospital

Bathesda is best known as the primary center for brain related injuries, but they treat almost any kind of injury from damaged limbs from explosions to gunshot wounds. Touring these wards is particularly heart wrenching. We visit the soldiers right in their hospital rooms and they are in various stages of recovery and treatment. Sometimes they are very cognizant and lucid, and other times they are so deep under pain medication that they are hard to communicate with. Most of the soldiers we visited with were surrounded by their family members and were in the midst of or almost done with their treatments.
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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.

Last October I was privleged to be part of a group of cartoonists who traveled to Washington D.C. and then on to Landstuhl, Germany to visit with and draw for wounded U.S. soldiers. Those who went on the trip with me were Chip Bok, Jeff Keane, Rick Kirkman, Mike Peters, Bruce Higdon, Jeff Bacon and Stephan Pastis. The trip was an incredible experience.

Last month another group of 8 cartoonists made the same trip. Bill Amend (Fox Trot), Jeff Bacon (cartoonist for Navy Times and Marine Corps Times), Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Jack Davis (Mad Magazine), Bill Hinds (Tank McNamara, Cleats, Buzz Beamer),  Jef Mallett (Frazz), Michael Ramirez (editorial cartoonist for Investors Business Daily) and Rob Smith Jr. (editorial cartoonist for Glen Beck) made the trek this time, visiting convelesing soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital and Bathesda Naval Hospital in the D.C. area, then Landstuhl Medical Center and other U.S. military medical facilities in Germany. You can read a bit about their trip here. I know they had an amazing trip… it’s impossible not to become emotional seeing these young men and women who have given so much for us and our country. They are all heroes.

These trips are great and I hope they will continue. Jeff Bacon is the man who has gotten these things organized, funded and overseen. He deserves a big hand: