We continue our regular reports from the Humanities Research Seminar with a piece by one of public fellows, Bruce Plante, who is the staff editorial cartoonist at The Tulsa World:
I had just started my job as the editorial cartoonist / staff artist at The Fayetteville (N.C) Times. It was my second job in the newspaper industry. I admit it. I was cocky. I wanted to be a tough, kick-ass cartoonist. I wanted everyone to know that Bruce Plante was in town!
The big news of the day was that two men convicted of murdering a Denver radio talk show host were, in fact, retired Green Berets. They also had served as mercenaries for Libyan despot Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Two of our very highly trained soldiers were bringing dishonor to the proud Green Berets. That made me very angry (sort of a requirement for hard-hitting cartoonists).
So, I penned a four-panel cartoon with the headline “Sung to the tune Ballad of the Green Berets” (theme song for a 1968 John Wayne movie of the same name). The first panel pictured several soldiers parachuting, with the lyrics “Flighty soldiers from the sky. The second panel pictured a Green Beret with a price tag on his gun, beret and ear with the lyrics “the best men that money can buy.” The third panel pictured a Green Beret counting money from crazy-eyed Gaddafi with the lyrics ”men who lead this life for pay.” The fourth panel pictured a Green Beret with the lyrics “…the brave men of the retired beret.”
The next morning at 7:30 my home phone started ringing with the first of seven death threats.“Boy, we’re trained to kill assholes like you!” (censored for obvious reasons). Normally, I didn’t notice the many helicopters that typically flew overhead on my daily route to work, but I did that day. Now, I worried they might have called an airstrike on me. When I arrived at the newspaper there were about 50 people with signs reading, “Can the Cartoonist!” When I got into the newsroom my editor greeted me by saying that I wasn’t fired but that 200 people had canceled their subscriptions. Bad news considering we circulated to only 20,000 subscribers.
Did I mention that Fayetteville, N.C., is the home of Fort Bragg, the largest Army base in the world and the East Coast training base for the Green Berets?
Was the cartoon a success? On one hand, it was, because the cartoon was disseminated by The Associated Press, which meant that millions saw the cartoon and had to consider the point I was making. On the other hand, the cartoon was misunderstood by most of those I was defending. In any case, that episode taught me a lesson I’ve remembered in the more than 6,000 cartoons I have drawn since. Call ‘em like you see ‘em, and let the chips fall where they may.
I got my wish. Many people knew Bruce Plante was in town, and they didn’t kill me.