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FOB funnies

As soon as Army Staff Sgt. A.J. Merrifield saw the sign at headquarters — “Task Force Band of Brothers” — he could see it coming.

He turned to Maj. Gen. Thomas Turner, the commander at Forward Operating Base Diamondback in Mosul, Iraq, in 2005, and dreaded what he was going to have to tell him.

“You know we’re going to be Task Force BOB from now on, sir,” Merrifield said.

But at the time, he didn’t know he would take on the moniker himself for his artwork: BOB on the FOB Comics.

The comics have more than 11,000 fans on Facebook and have been passed around from FOB to FOB throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

It began when Merrifield started noticing certain leadership “styles.” A military police officer, he saw that some noncommissioned officers made every excuse not to go off the FOB. Thus was born his first comic hero: the Fobbit.

He continued creating characters — the Geardo who wears high-speed sunglasses and boots even though he works in maintenance, or the TOCRoach who drinks all the coffee in the tactical operations center — or anywhere else.

Now on his second deployment, Merrifield has just come up with a batch of new comics.

“Four years later, it amazes me that people are still passing the ones from the first tour around,” he said. “I love hearing from people that it made them laugh.”

To see more “BOB on the FOB,” visit www.facebook.com/bobonthefobcomics.