In-Country by Oregon Veteran Phil Fehrenbacher

Introducing a new regular feature in Oregon Veterans News Magazine

By Tyler Francke, Veterans News Magazine

Phil Fehrenbacher was in trouble. Big trouble.

The lifelong Portland resident had enlisted in the Army out of high school with three buddies. They were all still in basic training.

The trouble was, Fehrenbacher liked to draw. He had been doing it all his life, and he seemed to have a real knack for it. He could illustrate just about anything, but he particularly loved the medium of cartoons.

I guess no one ever told Fehrenbacher that cartoons and caricatures poking fun at his commanding officers wasn’t a great idea. He showed them around to his buddies on the sly, and they all got a kick out of them.

Then, one day, he got called into the orderly’s office, and there were his drawings, lying on the orderly’s desk. His heart sank immediately, and he knew he was in for it.

“He chewed me up one side and down the other,” Fehrenbacher recalled. “Then, finally, he laughed and said, ‘How’d you like to do this for the Army?’ I said, ‘Well, heck yeah.’”

After basic, he received the assignment of Army illustrator and stationed in Germany, where he drew slides and helped present nuclear deployment stategies to senior staff. He loved his 16 months in Germany, where he played for the German basketball team and learned karate in his spare time. Then, he got orders for Vietnam.

“I went from three feet of snow to 100 and whatever degrees,” Fehrenbacher said. “Landed right there in Tet (the Vietnamese New Year) of ’68.”

He was supposed to be an illustrator for PsyOps, but was eventually reassigned to a military intelligence batallion, where he served the remaining 21 months of his enlistment.

After he got out, he returned to Oregon, where he found a job working for a T-shirt shop. He designed a number of shirts that proved popular with one of the shop’s clients, Harley-Davidson.

Fehrenbacher estimated he made 80 to 90 designs for the iconic motorcycle manufacturer.

He eventually settled in the Salem area, working as a graphic designer for the Public Utilty Commission, and then the Department of Consumer and Business Services, before his retirement in 2003.

It was then that he returned to his first love, cartoons, with two strips: Gray Area, which chronicles Baby Boomer grandparents and their interactions with younger generations, the modern world and getting older; and In-Country, which deals with the memories of his time in Vietnam in ways that are sometimes humorous, sometimes serious.

“It was kind of a goal. I wanted to put it down,” Fehrenbacher said. “I see a lot of guys will write out their stories, like in memoirs, but I’ve always liked cartoons.”

He started posting the panels on Facebook and was blown away by the response. To date, the In-Country Facebook page has over 17,000 followers, and each new post generates hundreds of likes and comments.

“The thing that’s really worthwhile to me aren’t the cartoons as much as the comments you get,” he said. “Some are support, some are line units. Army, Navy, all the different branches. And they all had a different experience about the subject of the cartoon. My daughter thinks it’s cathartic for me to do this.”

Fehrenbacher said some veteran support groups have asked to use the strip because their members find it helpful in dealing with their PTSD.

“The thing that’s most amazing to me, though, is how younger vets have taken to this,” he said. “Even though it was a different time period, it’s still happening now, the same situations.”

And it’s not just on Facebook that Fehrenbacher has been reaching fellow Vietnam vets with his memories and stories, which they often share. Rolling Thunder, a reenactment group based in England, has been a big supporter, as have 1o or 12 other groups all around the world who have asked to use the strip.

He was even interviewed one time for a newspaper in Budapest.

“It’s kind of funny to see them pop up in a different language,” Fehrenbacher said.

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/ InCountryCartoons.

You can also see more of his work in future editions of Oregon Veterans News Magazine.