Seriously, the smiles on the faces and the laughter of the soldiers, both wounded and on the medical staff of the centers we visited, were more than adequate reward for me for whatever meager efforts I was able to do on the trip. It’s pretty hard to be concerned with getting attention for doing a bunch of silly doodles when you are staring into the face of a young soldier who gave one of more of his or her limbs for our country.

Wiley, you sound like some of my wife’s friends from back in her hometown. I seldom visited with her or the kids on summer trips to her parents place as summers are crazy for me work-wise, and she was accused of making me up entirely. When I finally did visit, I told everyone I was an actor she hired to play her non-existent husband. Nobody bought that as they figured if Anna was going to hire someone to pretend to be her husband, she’d have gotten someone better looking.

Ditto on Jeff Bacon’s read of Tom’s contribution. He consistently had a long line awaiting his caricature treatment, and he left them all laughing. Don’t let Tom’s humility fool you, he not only carried Stephan’s bags, but carried me piggyback when my feet hurt.

I can’t say enough about how rewarding the trip was, and what a great group of guys it was my privilege to travel with. All pros and terrific people.

Probably the reason he isn’t shown or mentioned is that you could never see him because of the troops crowded around him. I’m surprised his arm didn’t fall off by the end of the week.

I also think the article and video overlooked Stephan Pastis, whose cartoons were received with absolute glee by Pearls fans, and in case you didn’t already know, there are a lot of them.

All the cartoonists were wonderful to see in action. You only had to look at the faces of the subjects to see how delighted they were with the visit by the NCS. We hope to continue this effort at Landstuhl and several other sites around the world.

Somehow I managed to be the invisible man on this trip. Not only am I not mentioned in this article, but the American Armed Forces Radio (meaning media) did a short video news story which I managed to completely miss as well. I was allowed to carry Stephan Pastis’ luggage however.

That’s a joke, BTW. The reporters and video people followed the other 4 artists during our day at Landstuhl. I don’t care about being mentioned in print or any coverage of the event. I didn’t do it for the publicity. It’s was an inspiring experience, and the group of cartoonists we had was terrific.

I’ll have a full report on my blog next week.

“The final group of artists has changed a little due to various scheduling conflict. Our group includes the man behind this effort and several others bringing cartoonists to military hospitals all over the U.S., Jeff Bacon (“Broadside”, Naval Times) NCS president Jeff Keane (”Family Circus”), Mike Peters (”Mother Goose and Grimm”, editorial cartoonist), Chip Bok (editorial cartoonist), Stephan Pastis (”Pearls Before Swine”), Rick Kirkman (”Baby Blues”), Bruce Higdon (”Punderstatements”, freelance cartoonist), and myself (bum). Quite a group.”

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57833

Interestingly enough, the article doesn’t mention Tom, Mike Luchovich, Stephan, or Walt Handlesman. Anybody think the AP will pick up this story?