Rats! Episode 112 – Sorry we’ve been gone so long!

Rats! webcomic

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized webcomic!

Hey everyone! I apologize for not posting a “Rats!” comic in the last two months. For those of you who don’t follow my other posts or webcomic, I tore the meniscus cartilage and the ACL in my right knee at the beginning of November during a training camp for Girl Scout volunteers. I had surgery to reconstruct the ACL and repair the meniscus a month later and have been recovering ever since. I can hobble around the house pretty well now, but still need a leg brace and crutches from time to time. And since my office, where I scan in all my webcomics, is up a second flight of stairs from the rest of the house, I have not been in there to work on scanning in the “Rats!” comics ever since I tore my ACL. I’ve been drawing the other webcomic, “The Adventures of Cynical Woman,” on my iPad, which was convenient while I was off my feet, but “Rats!” was drawn on paper back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and it had to be scanned in. Now that I finally have the leg strength to get up and down that second flight of steps, I can finally get back to my office to do that.

Anyway, about this week’s episode. When I was a new cadet, every new cadet in my company was expected to take a fall for their buds. I know people took the blame for me when I screwed up, and I think I probably took the blame for others once or twice, though I can’t recall any specific details. The point was, whether or not you were at fault, you were going to be in trouble no matter what. That’s just what it meant to be a new cadet.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a new cadet now, but I remember it was pretty intense when I was in the VTCC. We had a cadet first sergeant who scared the hell out of me, and our XO was almost as bad. I think my squad sergeant had made it his goal in life to make me miserable, and there were a few sophomore cadets whom to this day I still despise for the way they treated me. But I survived it all, and dealing with those people taught me a lot about how to deal with other “difficult” people and scary situations later on in life.

Well, I’ve got to get some more stuff scanned in for another blog post, so I’ll sign off here. But if you were ever a new cadet in the VTCC, let me know what it was like!

About Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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One Comment

  1. I’m currently a cadet in the VTCC and no one really takes the fall for each other, because group punishment has mostly gone away. It’s still here, but about half the time freshmen would be individually punished. So we don’t have the “take the fall for your buds” mentality.

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