Between 1964 and 1973 some 2.2
million American men were drafted into the U.S. military to fight in the
Vietnam War, the graphic novel by American artist, writer, and cartoonist, Rick
Parker, Drafted, is his personal story of his time in the
Military.
For those of you (like myself) who
know of Rick from his many years working on numerous Marvel comics (including
the Beavis and Butt-Head comicbook), his various Papercutz comics
and graphic novels, or perhaps his artwork which has appeared in various
publications, including The New
York Times, The Village Voice, Time, Life,
U.S. News & World Report, or other publications he is a talented
cartoonist with a very sharp wit. Parker began his professional work at his start
at Marvel Comics, in the late 1970s as a letterer for, working quite a bit for
Spider-Man editor, Jim Salicrup.
He also was one of the four original
artists of The Pekar Project (SMITH Magazine, 2009–2010), which brought the writing of the American autobiographical comics pioneer Harvey
Pekar to the web. In addition to his extensive Marvel work, he went on to again
work for Salicrup over at Papercutz,
where he not only drew the introductory pages of Tales from the Crypt,
but illustrated a series of
graphic novel parodies—written by Stefan Petrucha including Diary of a
Stinky Dead Kid (2009), Harry Potty and The Deathly Boring
(2010), Breaking Down—a parody of the Twilight series—(2011),
Percy Jerkson and The Ovolactovegetarians (2011), and The
Hunger Pains (2012).
After years of working for other
companies on other people’s properties In 2024, Rick decided that it was time
that he worked on a project of his own. He wrote and illustrated a 256-page
graphic novel about his time in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. To be
sure, while Rick did serve in the Army for around three years during that
conflict, he wasn’t actually deployed into a war zone or overseas, but was
stationed here in the U.S. In his eye-opening, and often entertaining, and disturbing
tale, Rick relates the story, a shy, inexperienced, and overly protected
teenager from Georga, who got drafted into the United States Army at the height
of the Vietnam War and weathered out his time without it seriously damaging his
true self.
Rick begins his tale from the time
he graduated high school and entered a local community college. However,
However, shortly after turning 18, his draft number came up, and he was having
so much difficulty with his studies, that he wound up flunking out of school.
However, he was bound and determined to reregister as soon as he was able, but
it was to no avail, as he was tapped by Uncle Sam to enter the military,
something he did with no small amount of trepidation. From here Rick goes
through the many steps of transitioning from civilian life to the early days of
being inducted not the military, and how disorienting that was. He described in
detail how those initial days in boot came were, and if you ever saw any
military films where bootcamp was depicted, then you have a pretty good idea of
how those days were for Rick.
From Georgia, Rick went for his
training into South Carolina, and as he had served two years in high school in
ROTC training, he was immediately promoted to squad leader. Here again, Rick
went into all sorts of daily details of what training was like, as well as his
thoughts, and concerns as he moved through his day-to-day life. This included everything
from digging fox holes, to marching, to learning to fire all sorts of weapons
(including bazookas) and driving a tank, to going out and drinking with his
patrol mates.
Eventually Rick was transferred to
an army field artillery unit in Oklahoma, where he went through officer
training. There he and his contemporaries were put through more training,
hazing, workouts, getting yelled at by their superior officers, and cleaning
everything, to within an inch of its life. In camp, everything was regimented,
how you sat, how you spoke, how you cleaned, how you walked guard duty, and
even how you prayed at mealtimes. Rick recorded it all.
One area where Rick had difficulty
was targeting the howitzers, as this required a working knowledge of
trigonometry, a subject that Rick had repeated difficult with. Later on, during
a war game exercise, Rick got separated from his team and was captured by the
opposing forces. He and the others captured were herded off to a mock P.O.W.
camp where they were “tortured” by their captors, much in the same way the Viet
Cong would torture them if they were caught in actual combat.
Eventually Rick and a fellow
captor were left alone in a secure area where there was a hole n the ground.
The pair of them saw it as a way to escape, and each crawled into the pit and
out through the tunnel below ground. Unfortunately for Rick, while his
companion went in head first and was able to crawl his way out, Rick mistakenly
chose to go down into the hole feet first, and as there was no way to either
crawl out, or turn around, he was forced to crawl feet first through the length
of the tunnel to the exit to escape. Once out, the pair eventually made their
way back to their own lines.
From here, Rick was transferred to
missile school which indicated that he wouldn’t be going to ‘Nam—which relieved
both him and his mother. In his new billet, life was a bit easier, as he was
commissioned as a second lieutenant. During this time not only was President
Kennedy assassinated, but Martin Luther King was also shot and killed. In
addition to this, one of the soldiers at the base was also killed in a motor
vehicle accident. Rick described each of these incidents and how they affected
him at the time. He also related how he was asked to draw pictures of several
of the men in his group, Rick even related an incident where he met a local
girl and lost his virginity to her.
Shortly after that his group was
transferred to Utah to meet up with a German NATO team to practice transporting
a Pershing missile. Unfortunately, before the missile was fired, Rick was
transferred back to Fort Sill, and he never got to see the missile fired. While
back at the fort, while the rest of his group were still out on maneuvers, Rick
was the highest-ranking officer on the base, which caused him to be called to
deliver news of the unfortunate death of a soldier to the dead man’s wife, who
was still in the hospital shortly after having delivered their baby.
As Rick’s time in the military
drew to a close, he detailed a number of his remaining duties, including
conducting a funeral ceremony for a soldier who was felled in ‘Nam, and to
present the flag that covered the soldier’s coffin to the man’s four-year-old
daughter. That final act completed, Rick
made his way back home by a rather roundabout route where the story finally
ends.
Having grown up during that same
time period, but having missed out on being drafted myself (I’m just a tad
younger than Rick, and thus turned 18 shortly after the draft had ended) I was
singularly unaware of what military life had been like during that era, and was
rather surprised and shocked by quite a bit of Rick’s experience. Still, I
found his story not only interesting, but engaging, and very well told. As a
cartoonist, Rick’s art had a “cartoony” style to it, rendering it not so much
like Beetle Bailey, but not quite like Marvel’s The ‘Nam either,
softening some of the harsher elements, and making the whole thing relatable to
the reader. All-in-all, it proved to be a thought-provoking and noteworthy tale
that is well-worth reading.
