Editing 1113: Killed in Action

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| number    = 1113
 
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| date      = September 26, 2012
 
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| title    = Killed in Action
 
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| image    = killed in action.png
 
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| titletext = We can't let this happen again. We need to build a secure TWO-day-before-retirement safe room.
 
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==Explanation==
 
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The comic plays with the TV and film trope of {{tvtropes|Retirony}}, in which a cop is killed in action only a short time before (often the day before) retirement, usually producing a sense of even greater tragedy in the timing of the death. The humor of this strip arises from the notion that, given so many policemen are killed the day before retirement, retiring cops could be sequestered in a secure facility on the day before their retirement to avoid retirony. Unfortunately this merely results in tragedy when a cop is killed the day before being sequestered.
 
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The title text is a reference to the reactionary nature of security procedures often put in place in the aftermath of an incident, and how they typically fail to address the root cause of the problem. If the logic expressed in the title text was followed repeatedly, eventually the number of days police officers spent in the secure room would encompass their entire career. Perhaps even quicker, if combined with another expandable scheme designed to protect rookie cops from similar {{tvtropes|FirstDayFromHell|'first day accidents'}}.
 
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A certain similarity could be drawn between this and the US Army's problematic policy of only having combat troops serve for a single year in combat during the Vietnam war (unlike during WWII, when combat units were put into the front line and left there until the war was over, with losses being made up with a constant flow of individual replacements, which was even more problematic). Having troops only serve for a single year led to a far lower rate of troops "broken" from constant combat stress, but it also led to soldiers increasingly avoiding risk once the halfway point of their year was passed and their time to go home got closer; not only that, but the stress of the last few months, knowing one was almost "home safe", yet forced into danger repeatedly could also psychologically damage men. It also created an incentive to just make it alive through the war, no matter what it took, unlike a situation where a soldier knows they are stuck there until the war is over; the latter can function as an incentive to fight harder, or at least to just give up any real hope that you'll live long enough to see the end anyway.
 
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See also the {{w|Unexpected hanging paradox|paradox of the "unexpected hanging"}}.
 
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==Transcript==
 
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:([[Hairbun]], [[Danish]] and [[Cueball]] are standing in the background by a coffin. A second Cueball, as the policeman and [[Ponytail]], as the policewoman, are standing in the foreground.)
 
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:Ponytail: Good cop. It's a real shame—
 
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:Ponytail: He was just one day away from getting put in the locked, heavily guarded room where all cops stay for the last day before they retire.
 
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{{comic discussion}}
 
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[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
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[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
 

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