"The Bus" - Cadet Dog

2023 Gouache, pen and ink
One of my Faithful Readers once served in the Canadian military as part of the UN peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. (It was called the Stabilization Force, or 'SFOR'). Her stories of the deployment and the longing after many months to return home inspired me to make a series of cartoons that would tell the story. It's far from finished but I've made a start. It's difficult to write someone else's story.

Why "The Bus"? When a deployment finally did end, one walked an irreverent gauntlet of fellow soldiers whose time was not yet up, to board a bus that would start the journey home at last. So this story will be called "The Bus".

Of course, all Canadian military members must start off as a cadet somewhere: