Terminal Lance: The White Donkey (2024)

Maximilian Uriarte enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 2006 at the age of 19 and served 4 years. During this time, Max went on two combat deployments to Iraq between 2006 and 2010.
In 2010, he left the Marine Corps to pursue a career in art and film.
He created the popular comic strip Terminal Lance and began writing his graphic novel The White Donkey, that was five years in the making, because he wanted to tell a story about the existential crisis of the military experience, and what it means to enlist during a time of war.
As someone that has seen veterans reach the brink of suicide, as well as losing multiple veterans throughout his life to the demons of war, he wanted to tell the story of what might drive a Marine to put a gun to his head.
This is not so much a book about the Iraq war, or combat, or valor, or patriotism, as it is a story about a Marine and what it all meant to him.

Iraqi policeman: “Do you know why I am here?”
Bored Marine: “No”
IP: “Because this is my home. Not like you, this is not a journey for me. I will not return home from a far away land and tell my family about the strange and foreign sights.”
Bored Marine: “What’s your point?”
IP: “My point is that you are arrogant. All Americans are, really, but people like you especially. I have met many of your type over the last few years, coming here to fulfill some personal conquest, but you never stop to think about how arrogant you are. You seek some enlightenment at the expense of my people. You do not care about Iraq. You do not care about my people.”

I have been a proud anti-war protestor all my life, from Vietnam through the Iraq wars. The Vietnam draft ended just as I was supposed to go. I am a pacifist, which a vet might say is a luxury not everyone can afford, but I support vets; as they might say, they fought to give me the option to be a pacifist. Like almost everyone, I have lost family members to various wars, and mourn and salute them for their sacrifices. That said, I did not initially really want to read this graphic novel in part developed from the author's online popular work. Especially a work that is written by an artist popular with active combatants and veterans everywhere. I was a little worried it was going to be macho justificatory in some way. Some comics are like that, and they are entitled, but see above, I'm a pacifist. And as it turns out I really really liked this and was moved by it and learned a lot about the various perspectives of combatants I would otherwise not have known.

Uriarte is an Iraqi war vet, who knows what he is writing about, and it shows. The story he tells is of a guy who enlisted and was bored not to see much action for months, and then saw it, more than he ever would have wanted to see, and it traumatized him, major ptsd. In the light of what we know about vet depression and suicide, it was good and important to read this story. Every line of dialogue feels real, and as a guy who never served, I learned a lot about how it might have felt to be there, the complications, the boredom, the anxiety, the fear. It's not political work, it's more psychological, to help us understand what it is like to be there. And we get multiple views, from long term combatants, and newbie "boots." Tough guys and people probably more like me, guys who are ambivalent, not career soldiers, let's just say. Very vulnerable. So I was pretty moved by it. I suggest you check it out.

Then I was also impressed by this review from my good buddy Goodreads friend and also vet sud666, who writes this passionate response to the book, seeing it from a vet angle I could not of course have seen, and also learned a lot from:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A young Marine comes back from Iraq, only to find that everyone has changed...or has he changed? This heartbreaking GN looks at PTSD and the web of feelings of guilt that trap our young warriors when they 'come home' and struggle to find who they have become. That web tightens as they struggle, trying to free themselves from pain. We all need to try to understand PSTD - we owe our service members as much - to do less would be to abandon them to an enemy we should fight against - for them.

Terminal Lance: The White Donkey is written by former Marine Maximilian Uriarte. Uriarte spent time as an MRAP gunner and redeployed to Iraq as a combat photographer and artist. Terminal Lance is a pastiche of his experiences in the Corps from 2007-2011. It's a look at the daily life of an Infantry Marine (grunt), aka PIG (Professionally Instructed Gunman) that's where the term War Pig comes from.
Urirate spent his time with 3/3 (3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment)located in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. Strangely, early on in my time in the Corps I was stationed at the MCB (Marine Corps Base) there. So I am impressed with the artistic accuracy of this graphic novel. This is a work of fiction, something the author makes abundantly clear on the very first page with large block letters that say "This is a work of FICTION". This is true, but the adventures of LCpl. Abe, from Oregon, have the ring of truth behind it.
As a former Marine, 10 years of service 8 of them in combat from 2001-2008 (Afghanistan and Iraq), there is much in this writing style and the memories it evokes that bring a smile to my face. But there is something that needs to be pointed out. LCpl. Abe is what we call an FTA (Failure To Adapt). That's a term for people who joined the Corps and shouldn't have. In this Terminal Lance has much in common with Jarhead by M. Swofford and Spare Parts by Buzz Williams. The main protagonists of these stories is a FTA, or if you prefer Marine slang "f*ck ups". The title is a hint- a Terminal Lance is someone who has no leadership skills, no warrior spirit, nothing that makes that person ever get promoted to the NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer). They are those guys who I've run into that did 4 years in and you ask them their rank and they mumble "Lance Corporal"..oh yeah? Much like the undergraduate that spends 8 years to earn a Bachelors degree in English, perhaps it's time to take a hint-this might not be for you (take a pass on Grad school and any post grad).
LCpl Abe is typical of what sometimes errantly make their way to the Corps, instead of joining something like the Army or the other branches of service. LCpl. Abe doesn't like to fight, doesn't like the people in charge, doesn't know why he joined, doesn't really like it, etc... perhaps he thought it would be JUST like the civilian world- except with guns. Uh-huh. Sure. He quickly finds that the Corps is not here to indulge him.
LCpl Abe and his fellow boots (a boot is a new Marine, usually one who has seen no combat, the term means "fresh out of BOOT camp") go to Iraq. But this is a very, very different Iraq than the killing fields I had seen. I invaded Iraq in March of 2003 with 1st Force Recon and was there till 2008. The meat grindering battles of Ramadi, Haditha, Fallujah I&II, etc were over. Even the IED threat was diminishing due to new gear like phone jammers, MRRAPs, etc. Now this is not to imply that Iraq is a safe place in 2007. It was not. I believe almost 800+ Americans died in 2007. But, this is not the massive urban sprawl combat that was the case during the first few years. Why is this important? It helps to explain the attitude of the experienced Marines towards the Boots. To a Boot this is combat and scary and all that. To someone who has been on multiple deployments to real killing zones, the year of 2007 was one to keep an eye out for explosives but the chances of 10K jihadis going toe to toe with US Marines is a thing of the past. In much the same way when reserves flowed into WW2 Pacific killing zones, the actual Marines who fought and died in places like Iwo Jima, Tarawa, etc were not too welcoming of these boots. The Marine Corps, unlike the civilian world, is a place where words have little meaning. Deeds trump all. Those who fight may speak and express opinions-those who do not, should have the intellect to shut the F up.
Thus, while a civilian reading this might think the Marines are being cruel or rude, to a combat Marine this is the way it is. Don't like it? *shrug* There is the door..as soon as your contract is up. Bye. Take Care. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Thanks for your service. Those who "get it" and survive-they stay on some (like me) do multiple tours, volunteering to stay for 10 years and some become "lifers". It's is THOSE types of Marines who go on to elite units like Scout-Snipers, then Recon and if they survive to move up to Force Recon and eventually MARSOC. Just like not every student athlete is going to be a starter at a Div 1 Football program, even less will be very good, even less will be All-American and only a handful will be Heisman material. That's the way the Marine Corps is. LCPl Abe is none of those things.
Thus while his gripes are commonly heard, it makes his character an annoying prat. "Why did you join the Corps?".."I don't know" is LCpl Abe's answer. Hmmm okay then. While this entire book is a look at the daily tedium of military life as seen through the eyes of someone who doesn't really belong here and should have stayed in the civilian world where he could run his mouth all day, every day, ad infinitum ad nasueum. The Corps is NOT that place. In fact I can say it no better than the character of Lcpl Garcia, LCpl Abe's friend, and I wanted to include the entire thing because it is SO true (on LCpl Garcia's part):

LCpl Abe: NO! f*ck this stupid place! I'm so f*cking tired of this sh*t! We do the same goddamned thing every day and don't see f*cking anything! This whole thing is so stupid, I'm tired of being here, tired of the Marine Corps. I don't know what I was looking for coming here..but it wasn't this."

LCpl Garcia: "*sigh* Look man, we're gonna be up here for a few hours, can you just SHUT THE f*ck UP for like twenty minutes of that so I don't lose my sh*t?"

LCPl Abe: "You're not frustrated?!"

LCPl Garcia: "I'm just so f*ckING TIRED of hearing YOU dog on EVERYthing ALL the time, man"...." 'f*ck this sh*t, I'm a terminal Lance' and all that"...."We're f*cking MARINES, man. YOU might think of all this as bullsh*t, but I'm PROUD of where I am and PROUD OF BEING A MARINE. You're a smart guy, you'll probably get out of the Corps and do amazing thigs, but you're HERE RIGHT NOW, SO SUCK IT THE f*ck UP AND SHUT THE f*ck UP. You're getting paid to be here, no one forced you to sign that contract. So just stay over there and watch your sh*t. Don't say ANYTHING to me unless bullets start flying again."

Amen, LCPl Garcia. Someone should have told him that a LONG time ago, but then we wouldn't have much of a book. Which begs the question- where are the books by the people who LOVE this stuff? Guys like me, who find the normal marines to be not enough went into Special Operations (and you think the learning curve and attitude of the normal Corps is harsh? *lmao* Come spend 1 hour with Recon or Force-since the Tier one guys don't even speak to regular "grunts"). What about the guys like us, who not only loved it, but excelled in it-all the while admitting to the awfulness of the environment and what it does to those we care for? Why do the FTA's become the voice for the Corps? I am sure it plays well to a civilian audience who "experience" war by reading books or watching Saving Private Ryan...but to those that did this for a decade and lost 8 close friends and numerous acquaintances a Terminal Lance doesn't have the RIGHT to speak in the Corps. f*ck Ups should know their place and upon leaving the Corps, nestled in the comforting arms of civilian America whilst hearing platitudes of their own making and may then express himself FREELY. That is the right of every civilian American. Not in the Marines. WE KNOW speech is not free. NOTHING is free. If you're not paying, well SOMEONE else is-likely in places, countries, etc you've never heard about. We don't do it for money, fame or a lucrative book deal. We do it because we are Marines. Incomprehensible, I realize, but do civilians realize we find THEM similarly incomprehensible? Wouldn't THAT make a good book? I would read that-and so would 95% of those I served with across ALL branches.

Now, I'll climb down off my soapbox and say I DID enjoy this book. Surprising no? Just because I disagree with the Terminal Lance's opinions-the events he describes, the myriad personalities, they all have the ring of truth. The artwork is actually well done-the combination of black and white with some brown colors makes a very accurate portrayal of Iraq. The slant of the story I did not like, but I DO understand since I believe that anyone who wore a uniform has the right to speak about their experiences and if they have a negative view then it is their right to express that. Instead of sitting on the sidelines they did it..if they don't like it- it's their right to say so. I don't agree, in fact many in the Marines do not, and it would be nice if OUR voices were added..but that's another point for another topic.

My final view- well written, realistic view of daily life in a combat zone seen from the bottom up. It is parts tragic, funny, heart warming and sad. A lot like combat itself. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to see a birds eye view of life as a LCpl in the Marines. But-be warned, you're seeing it through the eyes of a "f*ck up". Something to bear in mind.

First off I'm giving it 5 stars as a graphic novel which isn't for everybody. Secondly, this is very Marine oriented. Any military veteran can relate to the humor and will understand the pathos. However, having had a son stationed at The Stumps made that part of the book very real.
Unlike the comic website Terminal Lance, this book deals with some very emotionally charged issues. It is not a "fun" read. It is a story of one young man's journey. Told without cliches, at least in my opinion, it feels like you're in the mind of a twenty something Marine infantryman. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in what that is like. If you're not military you'll probably need to have access to all the acronyms and various Marine terms used or you'll miss out on a lot of the flavor of the book. Well written and the illustrations are GREAT. A fast and powerful read.

An interesting contribution to the ever-expanding shelves of contemporary military fiction with an impressive taste of the market for ever-increasingly sophisticated adult graphic novels. I admit, I didn't necessarily see this coming. It's an impressive and moving piece of work.

In a nation where the military is increasingly less representative of the nation - where fewer families are personally vested in the human cost of military action - where fewer communities and high schools watch their young adults travel abroad and return changed (and, rarely, for the better) - it would be nice to think that the public is open to reading about the modern military experience. But, well, that's another story for another day. But I'd recommend this to anyone who wanted to dip their toe in the water, without making the investment in some of the heavier (and less artistic) offerings (although more on that below).

Having grown up in and served (in a different time, place, era) in the military, what I most enjoyed about this paneled perspective was its elegant simplicity, its sparse and clear and unvarnished peek into the mundane and the monotonous and the petty and the ... oh so human ... elements of life in uniform. The bonding, the hierarchy, the isolation, the pace, the frustration, and, again the humanity..... From what I've read about Uriarte, he's the real deal, and bonus points to him and the Kickstarter community for bringing his work to the printed page, libraries, and the big box book stores.

I know, I know, graphic novels aren't for everyone. But comic books aren't just comic anymore, and, since the 1980's, the genre has exploded in this country (even if we were a half-generation behind the Japanese, but that's another story). No, no, this isn't the place to make the case for 1980's/1990's classics that kick-started the genre, but ... but ... if you're curious, you'd do well to start with the epic Watchmen, some of Alex Ross's visually stunning breakthrough work, such as Kingdom Come or Marvels, Moore's The Dark Knight Returns (which, alas, rarely gets the credit it deserves) or even Gaiman's inspired original run of Sandman. And, yes, plenty of folks have no interest in adult comic books, and that's OK, too. So, without hesitation, I recommend this as a worthy historical fiction through art successor to some of the non-caped/costume/superhero/fantasy adult comics, such as the icons of the genre: Spiegelman's Maus and Satrapi's Persopolis.

To be clear, Uriarte is unlikely to find himself on the pedestal with the masters of the genre - for example, this isn't the lyrical bounty you'd find in a Gaiman work, but his work is impressively authentic. And that's the beauty of it! (Let's remember that most of the best-selling, colorful, and creative graphic novels are - ultimately - fantasy - and this is a far cry from that. This is modern historical fiction, served raw.)

How about this:

If you prefer non-fiction, I still think the two best books to start with are Finkel's The Good Soldiers and the sequel Thank You For Your Service, and, if the latter speaks to you (and you can stomach the realities of PTSD and TBI), I recommend Montalvan's troubling, heart-warming, yet, ultimately, controversial Until Tuesday.

In terms of modern fiction, if you liked Klay's (very good, but still, to my mind, over-rated) Redployment or Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, you might want to sample this. (If you're finishing high school or in college, and, when you were younger, you read Walter Dean Meyers' Sunrise in Fallujah and found it thought provoking, this is well worth your time.)

To be clear, this is not as encyclopedic or historic as the (well worth it) Harlem Hellfighters, which, of course, focuses on WWI, but I'm guessing that, if you liked this, you should add that to your list.

This is....wow. I want to write elegant, literary things but am left, simply, with wow. This full length graphic novel follows a new Marine from boot camp through his service, deployment, tragic circ*mstances, and his efforts to cope with those circ*mstances. It is harsh and beautiful. The art is well done to the point you wouldn't have to read a word to follow the story. The stark, limited color broken only occasionally by red adds to the overall effect of both hope, friendship, and bleakness at different points in the story. Graphic novels aren't my go to reading material, but occasionally I come across one that elevates the genre for me. This is one of those.

On the back of The White Donkey is a review from The Washington Post. "In many ways, The White Donkey is one long illustrated deployment journal." It's such a spot on assessment. However, The White Donkey is so much more than that.

It follows Abe, a carefree kid who joins the Marines like so many young American men do. After training, Abe is deployed to Iraq. Along with his friend Garcia, they begin to wonder if they are ever going to do anything of merit or value.

Written by Maximilian Uriarte, a Marine who served two tours, you get the no bullsh*t look of war through the eyes of a guy who has been through the gauntlet. The White Donkey: Terminal Lance gives us civilians an idea of what it is like for what the men and women in service do for us.

Wow!

Wow wow wow!

This one will very likely knock your socks off, my friends. My half-sister-in-law's fiancé shares the Terminal Lance strip on Facebook every now and then, so I was generally familiar with Uriarte's work. I like the strip. The humor is Marine-centric, but that's largely the point, and I've always been fascinated by niche comic strips, so I don't mind. And the artwork is lovely. Anyway, I wasn't sure what this book was going to be. A collection of the strips, perhaps? Nope. What we've got here is a genuine OGN--it uses at least some of the characters from the strip, but it's straight up fiction, not humor--and it's GOOD!

So Abe is a Marine awaiting deployment. He's itching to see some action, as are many of his friends. He's not sure why he joined, just looking for ... something. Of course, in Iraq, he finds more than he bargained for, but that cliched phrase hides an entire world ...

As I expected from reading the strip, this book drips with authenticity. The banter between Abe and his friends rings true, and you really feel that you know them by the middle of the book. I don't think it's revealing too much to say that at least one of them dies, and the rest of the book deals with Abe's reaction. This book pulls no punches, but it doesn't rub your face in blood and guts either. The emotional moments pack as huge a punch as Uriarte can give without pathos or melodrama. I came close to tears a few times. The storytelling is flawless, with good use of repeated panels for effect. Considering how far outside the comics mainstream Terminal Lance is--not affiliated with Marvel or DC or Image or anybody--well, it totally blindsided me. I was expecting it to be pretty good, but this is just a whole other level. This is seriously one of the best books I've read all year. Highly, highly recommended.

I was a backer of the Kickstarter from the beginning, and Max delayed the book a couple of times as he realized he had a lot more to do than he started with.

Now that I hold it in my hands, I can say it was more than worth the wait.

Max tells the story of Abe and Garcia as boot Marines going from their predeployment workup through their first deployment to Iraq. Every page of the workup brought back memories for me, and kept me emotionally engaged even though I only have the echoes of being stuck in garrison compared to the deployment experience.

At times I felt like it was a story I had already heard- because in a way I probably did, just not in language I could quite relate to until now. Every major conflict has produced works of storytelling from those who experienced it, using the language of the time to paint a picture. Sometimes those words get made into movies that try and fail to capture the essence of the written word.

Max doesn't have that problem. The White Donkey is a graphic novel, and Max certainly lets his talent shine. Using his artwork to communicate more emotion than could possibly be accomplished with text alone, I found myself unable and unwilling to tear myself away until the ending. The book is drawn with very limited use of color, and the style really works. But I think what had the most impact to me was the use of white space. For some reason, it was the pages with almost nothing on them that I lingered on longest, processing what I had been seeing until that point.

All in all, the book is an amazing read and I would encourage everyone I know to read it.

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier.

A relatable and vivid look behind the cammies and M4 to the people and experiences of Marines. Heartbreaking and relatable.

As a non-veteran that started reading Terminal Lance as a way to try to understand some of the things my brother was dealing with during his stint in the Corps, White Donkey was a intimate more in depth look inside the Corps.

After reading this I feel I can understand my brother better; its an account that I trust more then anything coming off the tv or out of Hollywood. From the boredom of baselife and training, the two deployments and the disconnect he felt upon coming home; in Uriarte's Abe I see my brother. Intense and at times crude (hello, they're Marines) with awkward questions and thanks, it puts you in their boots.
White Donkey makes you see the other side of the brief news reports or internet click-bait headline; in it you see a brother, cousin, son, neighbor that signed the contract, wore the uniform and came back with experiences that you can't touch or relate to.
Extremely well drawn, it's Terminal Lance on steroids, with delicate but stark lines and a washed out palette that makes you focus on the actual story line. With the strategic use of whitespace and transitions the story gives a sense of what the desert of Iraq must look like as well as the disconnect from civilian life in the Corps.
Well done.

Me: "I'm having a hard time figuring out what to say about Terminal Lance except that it's fantastic and everyone should read it."
The guy whose job pays for my comics addiction: "Yep, pretty much."

Updated 9/6/18 to try again: Most of my adjectives for this book start with H: haunting, harrowing, heartbreaking. It's an emotionally raw story about a young man who joins the Marines for probably not-so-great reasons, isn't particularly well-suited to it, and ends up badly broken by his traumatic experiences. Uriarte is a cartoonist and former Marine whose webcomic Terminal Lance became popular with Corps members and vets. Here he does a pivot from cartoon humor strips to a serious graphic novel, and it's clear he has talent for both kinds of work. It's not a universal story about military experience, because everyone in the military has their own story, but it is an important one.

An interesting read for me, as it reflects a portion of a story familiar to many in this country. It's also a perspective I don't think we encounter often enough.

As a graphic novel the plot is a little slow, but I think that fits this story since it's more of a "slice of life" than following a particular story arc.
I won't spoil anything but near the end there are some seriously beautiful panels. The moments in those panels are the juicy and redeeming parts of what feels like a slow story.

I also really enjoyed Uriarte's use of the comic form. At one point for dramatic effect he repeats an image for 8 pages to signify the gravity of a moment.

Overall, pretty good. It's not a 5 star because it was well crafted while not fantastically crafted. This probably stems from the decision of the author to do the *whole* thing himself, instead of offloading some of the artwork to other artists.

A great look at what it feels like to have PTSD.

You're young. You sign up to serve in the military because you want adventure, you want to blow sh*t up like in the movies and videogames, maybe you even believe in God and Country. But then you get over to Iraq or Afghanistan and realize it's not what you thought. It's boring. You're not really making a difference. It just seems like a huge waste of time.

Then you see combat. You kill. You see your friends die.

You're told by your commanding officer to get over it.

A goofy chaplain gives a halfhearted speech about God.

You go home and NOBODY understands. Not your family. Not your friends.

You turn on the tv and it's fake war drama. You look at your Call of Duty games and want to throw up.

So you lash out. You get drunk. You fall into a downward spiral doesn't end until you either break free or give up. That's what the White Donkey is about.

I worked with this unit in Haditha. The language and emotion are pretty spot on, but what else can you expect from someone who has done the job. Most books are written by individuals who talk to others about their experience, this is done from the perspective of the grunt. Not many can get that point of view. It is a great book, and very nicely illustrated. He gives the uninitiated a glimpse of the struggle most infantryman have once they come home from a combat deployment.

I highly recommend it.

So my husband is a former Marine and recommended that I read this. I don't often read graphic novels let alone books about the military, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It felt both real and surreal. I like how it didn't bother to explain a bunch of things. I had to ask my husband for background on some terminology. You get a great inside glimpse of the culture and complex feelings related to service. All in all, its a great story.

This was a good story but I will admit I didn't fully understand it. Oh I could grasp the bits about his guilt and frustration and his anger and the PTSD after seeing something truly horrible. What I didn't understand was the bit with the donkey. Is it meant to be some kind of symbolism or was the same donkey (or two identical donkeys) in two different countries? Or was he imagining the donkeys in the first place? I guess I will never know. But albino donkeys must be incredibly rare. So I feel really confused about this.

To be honest I picked this book up because of the donkey in it - not to read a war story (although I realized it was a war story of course). But I love equines and that includes donkeys. I am thankful that nothing bad had befallen this particular one. The donkey and the fox are drawn really well! I presume they are both albinos to make them stand out? Or white to show they are innocent animals? Or perhaps they are meant to represent something else? Now that I think about it, writing this, I might actually see a connection between the fox's unusual behavior near the beginning and the events much later??

I do wish this story didn't contain all of the profanity. I realize that is how marines and people in the military probably talk but I don't really like it. Still I didn't dock a star rating for it.

I do hope Abe is able to overcome his emotional problems. I feel he has a long road ahead of him...and it won't be easy.

I do think this story is very realistic in terms of the characters' emotions and various paths (events). And the ending: feeling lost & confused & an outcast at home.

I admit I don't understand the term "terminal lance".

As mil-humor enthusiasts and web comic fans can attest, Maximilian Uriarte's graphic novel "Terminal Lance: The White Donkey" has been a long time coming. And it has been worth the wait.

The Iraq War veteran and former Marine successfully funded his magnum opus in August 2013. The 284-page book released on Feb. 1, 2016, and quickly sold out. The creator has hinted at making arrangements for another print run.

The White Donkey tells the story of Abe and Garcia, two fictional characters who have previously appeared Uriarte's "Terminal Lance" three-panel comic, which publishes twice weekly on-line, and weekly in the Marine Corps Times print edition.

The titular white donkey is a beast of Uriarte's own memory and experience—an animal that he once encountered in Iraq. The donkey is real. Uriarte writes:

We had five fully armored vehicles, 23 Marines loaded to the teeth with rifles, grenades, crew-served weapons, and all the might and power of the United States Armed Forces. All of it was brought to a screeching halt by the most benign of animals.

A lone White Donkey made us all look like asses.

Nested within such rich ambiguity, Uriarte has created a smart-bomb of a literary device: A graphic novel that's graphic enough to portray the necessary bits about war being an ugly thing; sweet enough to depict the boot camp bromance of battle buddies on the road to war and back again; and downright beautiful enough to be regarded as mother-effin' literature.

It's an asymmetrical weapon designed to breach the civil-military divide. A Trojan Horse, potentially getting veterans and civilians to open up about their respective wartime experiences. Yes, there are jokes. Yes, it is entertaining. Yes, it is a "comic." It is also an important book.

As Brian Castner, Iraq War veteran and writer of "The Long Walk" and the upcoming "All the Ways We Kill and Die" tweeted earlier this month: "Every non-writer vet I know, the guys who don't professionally talk abt books, is talking about this @TLCplMax book."

That's because Uriarte is a skilled observer of the human condition, as well as Marine life. He's an effective writer—direct, to the point, no B.S.—and a fantastic visual storyteller. [...]

[For a full review, visit: http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/02/...]

An impressive tale (written AND drawn by a former Marine) of war, boredom, waiting for life to happen and then dealing with getting your wish.
The GI's are really hard to tell apart since they're all drawn in sepia and white. Even the Hispanic character is only recognizable due to his shaved head and later goofy mustache. Everyone else looks mostly the same with crewcuts and fresh young faces. (Even worse when in helmets and uniforms). But it doesn't really confuse the story - and really the military tries to turn a group of kids into a hom*ogenous working unit anyways so it makes sense.
The highs and lows may be somewhat predictable but this is neither an action story a la 80's Hollywood nor a high drama about effed up soldiers. It's a little of everything which feels real and disquieting.

Pretty good graphic novel about training and being in the Marines during the Iraqi Insurgency. It does make me question who would possibly sign up for the Marines if not for (a) extreme patriotism or (b) money, because man, does being in the Marines suck. I had some trouble telling the characters apart because of the uniforms and lack of color, but the author/illustrator mostly got around that with some visual tricks. There's two sequences at the end that are particularly unique and moving in their presentation of the events using a kind of flipbook-type image.

Written by an actual Marine, Terminal Lance gives the reader a look under the hood of the USMC during the Iraq war. Boot camp, leave, deployment. Useless COs, bullying NCOs, fast friendship, alienation from loved ones back home. Boredom, trauma, disillusionment, and despair.

This is heavy. Serious. Even when it's entertaining, it doesn't feel like entertainment.

It sticks the ending.

Jesus, dude, I did not see that coming. Brutal. I really don't know what to say because I'm sitting here in shock and thinking about the guys we lost 25 years ago. You never get over it, but the gun on the shelf doesn't solve anything.

I really wanted to like this highly personal graphic memoir more - but the repeated white donkey trope was not subtle, and the story ended too abruptly. Overall very interesting take on military life on the ground, in Iraq and @ home.

5 STARS

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

First graphic novel I’ve ever read, it was really good. Hard to put down & several deep themes can be pulled from it.

Stare deep into the eyes of fatality.

Max Uriarte's Terminal Lance comic strip is my favorite comic since Calvin & Hobbes. Granted, I'm in the core demographic of that strip – when I was on active duty from 2002-2006 I was a low reg-wearing, sardonic Marine with his share of non-recommendations for promotion. (I still, somehow, made it out as an NCO.) Whatever reasons I had for joining the Corps, I knew they didn't include endless hours cleaning rifles at the armory, concealing 5am weekday drunkeness at barracks health & comfort inspections, sucking up to old boy network SNCOs or boot officers with Finance degrees, or arriving fifteen minutes prior to fifteen minutes prior for a formation conducted by an endless matryoshka of higher-ups. Uriarte's Terminal Lance strip skewers the martinet absurdity of the professional class in America's All-Volunteer Military™ while saving enough heat to affectionately roast the young men & women who make up its proletariat.

The White Donkey: Terminal Lance takes Uriarte's work in a new direction. Uriarte's strips goodnaturedly lampoon the experiences of those who've recently served, but his graphic novel implicates every American participant in or spectator of the Global War on Terror. Graphic novels are notoriously uneven medium for telling stories about war. The good ones – Joe Sacco's The Great War is unmatched – can be truly transcendent works of art. The bad ones, like Brian K. Vaughn's Pride of Baghdad, can be myopic, sciolistic, and preachy. (I sympathize with what I presume is Vaughn's intended perspective, but the execution is resolutely one-dimensional. Vaughn's Pride of Baghdad is a disservice to its subject; it exhibits all the worst tendancies of dilettantish comic book moralizing. Niko Henrichon's illustrations are captivating, though.) In an brief exchange between protagonist Abe and an Iraqi policeman that transpires over a handful of panels, Uriarte probes a moral depth that Vaughn couldn't fathom over the course of his entire book. It's a poignant evisceration, by a supporting character who ought to be a passive participant in the monomyth, of the Campbell-esque hero's journey that motivates many young Americans' enlistments.

Uriarte uses hue to convey a sense of place, differentiating tropical Hawaii & Oregon's Willamette Valley, California's Mojave & Iraq's Al Anbar. A gloom hangs in Abe's pre- and post-deployment journeys home to Portland. The bright white panels can be searing, flooding the eyes with the omnipresent glare off the desert sand or transmitting emotional intensity. A minimal amount of the dialogue is merely expository; Uriarte doesn't shy away from keeping text to a minimum and letting his images carry the story.

The White Donkey depicts young Marines grappling with several serious issues: (dis)satisfaction with military life; deployments & relationships; the meaning of camaraderie; veterans' disillusionment with war; homecoming vs. the process of coming home; the civil-military divide; and suicide. Uriarte often engages these subjects in ways achievable only in this treacherous medium, and he effectively conveys his message for nearly every single one of them. This book is pretty formidable in its own right, but Uriarte's experience saturates his voice and makes it an indispensable work in the emerging GWOT canon. His talent is truly special.

4.5 stars, with additional kudos for transcending the hurdles of the medium.

Most of the good contemporary war fiction I read – Phil Klay’s Redeployment, Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, or Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds – makes it clear that much of the story is about boredom. It’s about the anxiety of waiting for something big and terrible to happen. There’s no story without those frightening events, but they’re anomalies. The real matter is the stultifying routine in the anticipation of them.

If you’re narrating and much of what you have to tell is anti-narration – if much of it is the opposite of story – then you have to figure out ways to show the nothing-happens part. Those strong novels find different ways of solving that narrative problem, and I recommend them all, but Uriarte has found a different and striking solution. This is a graphic novel, and the pictures carry much of that nothing.

There are pages here without words, and pages where the words are largely the noise of people filling the silence. And there are illustrations that move very little from one frame to the next, showing the rich detail of nothing happening. The end brings that forward in subtle and powerful ways. There is a 20- page wordless sequence in which we see only Abe lunging toward the bathroom to throw up. That sounds overdone, but trust me, it’s powerful.

Talking only about technique sells this short, however. Abe has gone to Iraq for reasons he forgets almost as soon as he arrives. He befriends Garcia, and the two of them navigate the uptight rule-boundedness of their wartime experience. We see elements in the Catch-22 vein – one officer, having misplaced his own rifle, creates a “drill” obligating the entire platoon to look for it before they can leave for a break – and we see the old Dear-John conflict of a young man feeling estranged from the woman he loves or thinks he loves.

And then there is the strange poetry of the white donkey of the title. In a work that’s this ambitious in terms of its emotional insight and geo-political range, it’s a real surprise to find such a layer of artistic insight. The donkey may mean nothing. In fact, I hardly noticed it when it first appeared. But it’s a kind of symbol that haunts Abe and that Uriarte brings into the story with surprising subtlety.

There’s a pointlessness to the experience of Iraq as Uriarte sees it, but the mission itself doesn’t seem to be pointless. We watch Abe grow from an awkward boy to a haunted man, and we really do ‘watch.’ Uriarte fills him out as the work progresses, and our final images show him with broader shoulders and a kind of hard-won wisdom.

My original The White Donkey: Terminal Lance audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Terminal Lance is Maximillian Uriarte’s very popular webcomic about life as Marine. This book, The White Donkey, was originally a graphic novel following two of the comic’s recurring characters, Abe and Garcia. The book’s audio treatment is good. And short, less than three hours. Sound effects abound. Each character has a different voice. There’s some background music. Essentially it’s a radio play. And a very good one.

Abe and Garcia go from training to battlefield to post-traumatic stress. They learn that being a soldier is hard: physical exhaustion, loneliness, bullies, and a wide range of leadership competence. The absurdity of military bureaucracy is on full display. So is the weirdness of military life. Sometimes, for example, you’re sighting your rifle at an enemy, waiting for the order to shoot. While you’re sweating out life and death, a white donkey at the side of the road stares at everything impassively. Including you.

And as the reader, you really are there. The production is enveloping. The changing actors and sound effects generate a lot of sensory information. Though fictional the events of the story feel more like life than plot. It reads like a soldier’s narrative. And that’s a good thing. It’s not excessively dramatic, or reflective, or lyrical.

The busy-ness of the actors and sounds got in the way as I listened, but I got used to it. That’s one reason I wish the book were longer. It seemed like I had only just gotten involved in the story, and it had ended. The extra audio elements belong there, like pictures to words in a graphic novel. This was produced professionally and it shows. Among the many readers are Kiff Vandenheuvel, Grace Lee, Benita Robledo, Eric Lopez, and the author.

One final note: the portrayal of post-traumatic stress here can be hard. But it feels real, which is all the more unsettling.

My review is 4 stars instead of 5 only because the ending doesn’t sit right with me.

Audiobook was provided for review by the publisher.

Excellent, excellent, excellent. The story engages you an take you throw the deployment; the drawing is very good too. Also from a psychological point of view, you can feel the pain, the trauma and the change in personality of the soldier; give you a better understanding of what a soldier passed throw. My respect for everyone who had fought in a war.