The Long Road Home : One Step at a Time

Thousands of U.S. soldiers have suffered grievous wounds in Iraq, but only one of them is a Doonesbury character.

This special collection chronicles seven months of cutting-edge cartooning, during which B.D.-and readers of the strip-got an up-close schooling in a kind of personal transformation no one seeks.

Deprived not only of leg but also his ubiquitous trademark helmet, B.D. survives first-response Baghdad triage, evacuation to Landstuhl's surgeon-rich environment, and visits by innumerable morale-boosting celebs, both red and blue in hue.

He's awed in turn by morphine, take-no-guff nurses, his fellow amps, and his family, including the daughter who hand-delivers succor, one aspirin at a time.

From rebuilding tissue to rebuilding social skills to rebuilding lives, B.D's inspiring, insightful, and darkly humorous story confirms that it can take a village, or at least a ward, to raise a soldier when he's gone down. "Thank you for getting blown up," offers one of B.D.'s visiting players.

Replies the coach, "Just doing my job."