Afghan Images, Afghan Memories

There's one incident from my trip to Afghanistan back in May of 2005 that I love sharing. I went out on a patrol along the Pech River to survey an IED site. The battalion's executive officer was making his rounds of the various FOBs (forward operating bases) the previous week when his vehicle was destroyed by an IED set in the road that parallels the river. Miraculously, other than busted ear drums, no one was seriously hurt. One of the drawings with this posting is of the XO's driver.

This road, if you can even call it that, ran between Asadabad and Jalalabad. The narrow valley that the Pech River had carved over the millenia was deep and rugged. All along our way we were greeted by families coming out of their rustic stone homes, ragtag gangs of boys in baggy pants dashing up from swimming holes and farmers busy in their terraced wheat fields. The smells of dust, freshly sythed wheat, water from the spring melt boiling in the river, and Humvee engine exhaust filled the air like some exotic curry dish. I was standing braced in the rear of an open back vehicle holding on for dear life. This road was so rough that kidney stones were being passed, dental fillings loosened and major vehicle components dislodged and discarded by the roadside.....and we could only go 20 mph max! Village after village came out to wave and stare.

Just below one of these villages, from my vantage point standing high up in the back of the HUMVEE, I saw what I soon learned to be a new school house. What drew my attention, in this landscape of golden fields, rock walls and churning water, was a flood of blue and white pouring out of the school. Banging down a river valley at 10 to 20 mph gives folks a lot of time to stop what they're doing and see what the ruckus is all about. What greeted us as we slowly passed the school house were several hundred Afghan girls in uniforms of sky blue cerulean topped with snow white hajibs. They were waving as if waving was an Olympic event. They stood in windows, leaned over the courtyard wall and jammed the entrance way jockeying for position. Here's the best part, the part I tear up every time I re-live this moment; they were shouting in English "Thank You!"

If You Build It They Will Come

Last Saturday I was invited to participate as a panelist at the first ever Milblog Conference sponsored by Military.Com and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I had a fantastic time and met a whole bunch of kindred spirits. It was a combination evangelical tent revival and family reunion. Andi of Andi's World was the prime organizer of the event and she's done a super follow-up job at her site.

The overarching theme of this gathering centered on the passion milbloggers have for sharing their story-matched only by the equally fanatical desire of our readers to find, follow, encourage and support us. (I'm reminded of Norman Rockwell's WWII painting for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post-Homecoming Marine - a newly returned gyrene, clutching a Japanese battle flag, relates his war experiences to the eager ears of neighborhood boys and the guys at his old workplace.) To a person, we milbloggers are amazed how these simple internet diaries, universally started to keep family and friends informed, have taken on a life all their own. Our journals became journalism. Our first hand reporting was countering second hand media retorting. Milblogging's authentic in the trenches voice continues to challenge the reporting of the main stream media, and on a daily basis is calling them out on the carpet. We built them and you came....by the tens and hundreds of thousands. Thank you! Staid institutions like the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, during this rapid unfolding of history, are hemoraging readership while the ranks of blog readers is swelling...traditional journalism is rapidly becoming journalwasm. Speaker after speaker referenced two newly published books which help explain both the phenomena and the impact blogging is having-The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman and An Army of Davids by Glenn Reynolds.

I wore a second hat at the Milblog Conference. The BBC, who interviewed me twice while I was in New Orleans earlier in the month, asked me to do interviews for them at the conference. One of the interviews (half way thru the podcast)was with Deborah Scranton, director of a documentary produced in collaboration with soldiers of a New Hampshire National Guard unit. The documentary, entitled The War Tapes made its debut at the Tribeca film festival and recieved a rave review from The New York Times. Ms. Scranton, along with one of the "stars" of the film, Specialist Michael Moriarity, came to the Milblog Conference out of solidarity with our movement, and to acknowledge the influence our blogs have been on her as a film maker. Go see it when it comes to town. Her website has a list of screenings open to the public.

Another high point this week was the portfolio review, acceptance and invitation extended to a new artist to join the Marine Corps Combat Art Program. Kris Battles, a former Marine sergeant and reservist, discovered this blog last winter and immediately contacted us about participating in the program. Kris is a professional portrait and landscape painter living in St. Augustine, Florida. We're excited about this addition to the line up and expect great things from this talented Marine. Over the next few months Kris will be in-processing back into the Marine Reserve. One of the great things about being a Marine is you only have to go to boot camp once! (In fact, only Marines can enlist into any other branch of the military without ever attending their particular boot camp.)

I continue to work in my studio on prelimary sketches and studies for my first major work of the year. The tentative title is going to be Storm and Stone. It's based on my experiences last May in Afghanistan with the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment. This unit was responsible for three wild and wooly provinces on the border with Pakistan. The foothills of the Tora Bora Mountains and the valleys of the Pech and Kunar Rivers are spectacularly beautiful, and ruggedly impassable. More to come as the work progresses.

Like most of you I've watched with interest the debut of another film this week, United 93. A retired Marine gunny friend of mine called yesterday after seeing the film and was virtually delerious with rage.....at the hijackers and at those who oppose the War in Iraq and on Terrorism. Every American, according to him, should be required to see this film. I've seen trailers of it and have listened to commentary on the radio about Flight 93. I don't know that I can go see it just yet. Just getting a tiny wiff of the film's content and hearing the impact it's having on moviegoers makes my jarhead meter peg way in the red. My friend, Gunny H., is a much calmer guy than I, and if he said he had to literally physically restrain himself during the last 45 seconds, the final assault on the cockpit scene, then I would have to be straight jacketed, sedated and hung upside down from a crane to keep me from bodily attacking the screen. I kid ye not. I'm Irish, and when my blood is up, Katy bar the door!

My thoughts this week about Flight 93 have been tempered by the protest this weekend in Washington, DC about the genocide in the Darfur Province of Sudan. Finally the left is picking a worthy cause to champion! Even they realize only the United States and Britain have the necessary kahoonies to do anything about this tragic and reprehensible situation. I hope and pray this time, with the support of the libs, we don't fail the Darfurians the way a previous administration allowed the slaughter in Rwanda in 1996 to go unchallenged and unmet by the UN. I still consider myself liberal and progressive on many issues. Author Victor Davis Hanson's muscular idealism resonates deeply with me. Another sign of hope, and evidence of a healthy self-examination and adjustment on the left is something called the Euston Manifesto.

I'm finally getting the hang of hyperlinking! Enjoy. I used to feel like the last analog guy in a digital world. You can teach an old devildog new tricks.

Remembrance

Lance Corporal Nicholas G. Ciccone USMC October 4, 1980 - October 13, 2003



Right before Easter an email appeared with a subject line that simply said Please Read. I didn't recognize the sender's name. Since starting this blog I've recieved messages from many new folks, so that by itself was no cause for concern. So, with some trepidation, I opened Please Read and the reason for the writer's urgency instantly became crystal clear. The writer, Matt, informed me that he'd just found my site and the graphite drawing of his step-brother, Lance Corporal Nicholas G. Ciccone. Whenever I'm asked what I believe to be my finest work unhesitatingly comes the reply that it's this portrait. Matt also informed me that his beloved brother committed suicide in October of 2003.

Matt's Please Read was followed by a flurry of emails from an extended network of family and friends. I had the privilege of speaking over the phone with LCpl. Ciccone's father and mother. Among other things I learned Nick's birthday, October 4th. October 4th is also the anniversary of the day my own father joined the Marines in 1938, and passed away in 1981. I can scarcely tell you how humbling and gratifying it is knowing how touched his family is by this portrait. The common thread through all their heartfelt messages is a healing sense that they've regained a piece of Nick they thought they'd never reclaim. They also wanted me to share his story-To keep before people's eyes those wounds which are rarely seen, heal the slowest, and often kill; the wounds that pierce the very soul of a person.

Here is LCpl. Ciccone's portrait again. It shows him the very instant after dropping his pack, putting down his rifle and taking off his helmet. He and his platoon have just stumbled exhausted into the blasted remains of the Kandahar International Airport terminal building after a nine day patrol among rugged Afghan mountains deep in winter's icy embrace. They had originally planned on being out for just twelve hours, but they found a huge weapons cache and the bad guys wanted it back. For nine days they battled the Taliban. For nine days they worked to destroy the cache. When they retrograded back to Kandahar they possessed what war correspondents simply call "the look". After returning to the States I had my film developed and sorted through the pictures. Ciccone's photo jumped out. I now realize why. His gear is off, but the weight's still there. Ciccone had "the look" in spades.

I personally call what had settled on Ciccone's face the "young/old" look. Walt Whitman, the greatest American poet, spent most of the Civil War as a nurse, a changer of bandages. After the war he added a chapter to his core work Leaves of Grass titled Drum-Taps. These eloquent poems are as close as you're going to get to photo-realism in poetry. Whitman, an avowed pacifist, honored the sacrifice of the soldiers he served without artifice or agenda. There's no taint of "but".....no editorializing or moralizing. He writes from a stool set beside a dying boy and not from some comfortable soapbox. Whitman wrote a poem that speaks of this young/old look called A Sight In Camp In Daybreak Gray and Dim. The poet has risen early and walking about a Union encampment comes upon the bodies of three dead soldiers laid out under heavy brown woolen blankets. Whitman pulls the covering away from each face in turn and speaks of what he sees. I give you the last stanza:

Then to the third — a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory; Young man I think I know you — I think this is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

This is the face of Nicholas G. Ciccone. At Easter each year we are reminded of our connectedness to the divine, to those who have suffered for us and hopefully to the healing that comes from awakening to the realization that we share a common lot with each other and with God. Christ's suffering upon the cross was in its finality more about abandonment and seperation, more about psychic than physical wounds. So to you Nick we say what Marines often do when pulling the blanket over the face of a fallen buddy, "go easy my brother, semper fi".

His father told me the story behind finding the drawing. His stepson Matt was up late unable to sleep thinking about his dead brother. So he did what many of us do during dark midnights of the soul, we google. Matt googled Nick's full name and up jumped a half dozen websites where the drawing is featured. A ray of light entered the dark night. I know this is not about me, but I must tell you again how profoundly moving it is for me to know that those closest to him find him alive in this drawing.

I mentioned in the previous post that I was down in New Orleans. I'm posting a photo I took there that I think is appropriate, and self-explanatory.

As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.

Pay It Forward

Hi everyone. Sorry I've been gone so long. Let me attempt to bring you up to speed.

First, where am I right at this moment? I'm sitting on the steps of The Wallace Library in lovely downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia. The time on deck is 2115. Why here? Simple, it's close to my home and provides free wireless internet access. This is a wonderful library. My daughter and I have done many a homework project from here. Years ago it was an elementary school. Warren Buffett, the richest man in the known universe, went to school here. His older sister, Doris, just renovated a house down the street to be her primary residence. Something special must have happened for them here way back when. She's donated a couple million to start a Boys and Girls Club in town. The headquarters for one of Warren's flagship companies, Geico Insurance, is up the road in Stafford County.

Directly in front of me runs Caroline Street, and on the opposite side, although very much in the dark, is the site of the first home of Fielding Lewis. Lewis was married to Washington's only sister, Betty. Rumor has it that she bore an uncanny resemblence to her brother.

The original home on the property burned to the ground during Fredericksburg's Great Fire of 1807. In fact the blaze started in the house, which by then belonged to another family. A funeral wake was being held in the home, but mourners were called away to the local race track. The burning candles around the casket had the final say that day. What remains on the property from then (there is a home built in 1811) is a step garden and the oldest retail building in America, the Lewis Store. http://65.17.219.53/Subpage.asp?pageid=7&subpageid=17

Tonight is a lovely Virginia evening. From about seven blocks to left down Caroline at this very moment streams the rythmic clamping of a train accompanied by its mournful trombone like whistle. I love listening to that sound late on hot summer nights. The traffic on Caroline is light and there's a soft cool breeze drifting over the rising and falling swosh of passing cars..... there goes Phoenix, my neighbor's Black Lab, he's barking at something. Excuse me while I bark back, it usually quiets him. Ole Phoenix is a bravo male. I'm an alpha. I babysit him frequently....there he's stopped.

Other common sounds tonight are sirens (we've got a large regional hospital) and the sound of helicopters. HMX-1, the President's squadron is just north of here and does training flights in these skies. I was once a crewchief with them and the pilots always liked to fly over the town and neighboring counties of Stafford and Spotsylvania to point out newly purchased homes.

A few people, mostly couples with dogs, are strolling by. I must look ghostly with the blue laptop screen illuminating my face. They say Fredericksburg is the most haunted town in North America. Tens of thousands of soldiers died in these streets and homes over the course of our Civil War. Nearly every home in the Old Town districts boasts a resident spirit. The History Department students of The University of Mary Washington conduct, for a small fee, a very entertaining "Ghostwalk" every Halloween season. A local Episcopal church did an exorcism about a decade ago to liberate a home from the supposed spirit of a Confederate. My ghost only turns up the old style thermostat on very cold nights. He must long to be warm again. Check out this site on Civil War battlefield ghosts.

Living in this town is a constant reminder of the long and hard journey democracy has had even in this country. Each Memorial Day weekend the Boy and Girls Scouts sponsor a moving "Luminaria" display at the National Cemetary bordering the Fredericksburg Battlefield. The over 16,000 civil war graves are individually graced with a small votive candle set in a cushion of sand at the bottom of a plain brown paper bag. These simple luminarias create a scene that leaves only the soulless dry eyed. Taps, which was written and first heard here, is played every half-hour by two live musicians echoing each other. The scouts patrol the grounds keeping the candles lit and replaced when necessary.

So what's new? I've been busy writing for the New York Times Frontlines site. That's brought other attention. For instance, last week I did radio interviews with Minnesota Public Radio
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/04/04/midmorning2/ , and two BBC talk shows; Radio Five Live and World Have Your Say. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/s. My good friend Pat Dollard was wounded a couple times in Ramadi. You can read about his adventures at Hollywood, Interrupted http://www.hollywoodinterrupted.com/. Scroll down and you'll find a couple articles with pictures he's sent from the front lines of gonzo documentary film making. I tell you again, Pat is the real thing. He's lost some weight. I told him the picture on the Hollywood, Interrupted site is his Zoolander "Blue Steel" look. Go see. I'll wait......Hopefully his show, Young Americans, will get finished before Pat is vaporized and achieves martyrdom.

Last week I attended a Marine Corps conference for the combat camera community in New Orleans. This was the first time ever for me in the Big Easy. What a fabulous town! On the last day, Friday, I was able to spend a whole afternoon in The French Quarter. Wow. I'm smitten. I had a nice talk with a gallery owner and she echoed sentiments close to those we troops have made about MSM reporting. She lamented, especially as a business owner, how CNN has mischaracterized the condition of New Orleans. Yes, there are still widespread and unmistakable evidence of Katrina's rath, but the Quarter is open for business while the rest of the town is being radically resurrected. My day included a monster plate of steaming Jambalaya nuking the inside of my mouth, and a visit to a used bookstore where I found a book by my favorite author, Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn. Despite everything you may have heard, seen or read, the mystique of this gem at the mouth of the Mississippi is intact and palatable. Reports of the Big Easy's death, like that of Mark Twain, has been greatly exaggerated.

A theme I've found myself turning again and again to is the "I support the troops but not the war" mentality. I'm fed up hearing it. Here's my feelings and reflections on the subject. The troops are not impressed with what we see as an elitist self-serving feel good attitude. This is a statement of pity and nothing more. It's pathetic and pandering. Male intuition may be a contradiction in terms, but most GIs have highly evolved BS meters, and it pegs in the red zone on this one. It reeks of political correctness. Marines returning from Vietnam were often greeted with outright animosity. Perhaps some of those now voicing this sentiment were guilty of this 40 years ago and are now trying to placate their own guilt. Inherent in this statement is a subtext that says we, the troops, are victims and they, the anti-war folks, are going to rescue us. It also suggests that they know better than us, that our visceral field experience has little or no value. We're either just a gaggle of country bumpkins hoodwinked into serving by socio-economic pressures, or knuckledragging cretin warmongers. The actual truth is something you'll never get from a Hollywood movie. The overwhelming majority of those serving are high school graduates, of high moral character and, based on the standardized military entrance exam, fall in the upper 50 per cent percentile group intellectually. We're educated, highly trained worldly men and women from all walks of life who've chosen freely our own path into the military. In short, don't cry for me Argentina. Usually wedded to this "we're so sorry you got tricked into fighting" gestalt is an underlying belief that Iraqis, and by extension all Muslim cultures are incapable of democracy. I want to suggest that there could be a little touch of racism at work here. And all the Bush mislead us crap. Get over it. We are here. Leaving is not an option. We got this girl pregnant and we need to do the right thing, which is not an abortion. Victimization. Stereotype. Racism. I'd rather step off the plane to someone spitting at me...that, at least, takes some courage. Los Angeles Times op-ed writer Joel Stein had the hutzpah in his article "Warriors and Wusses" to not make this distinction. He doesn't support the troops and he doesn't support the war. This is a guy I can respect. But big sad puppy dog eyes I don't need. The conditionality of "I support the troops, but not the war" posits a distinction we Marines don't make. We are the war. We're not interested in the kind of self-serving intellectualizing that argues about the definition of the word "is" and butt covering legal rationalizations about what does and doesn't constitute actual sex. We live and work in a concrete world and find abstractions, the obsession with splitting hairs symptomatic of a defeatist mentality. We're in the mission accomplishment mode and by extension only interested in what supports the mission. The cry of "havoc" has been shouted and the dogs of war let loose. Talk is at an end and the doing, the mission is afoot. We don't engage in the luxury of second guessing, or the liberty of political debate. One great strength of our Republic is the freedom from fear of military coups. (For those of you who at this very moment are taking a big over-educated breath and preparing to interject into your thought process "well not yet" I caution you to examine your stereotypes-Full Metal Jacket and A Few Good Men are entertainment and not documentaries.) Our necessary philosophy in the field is real simple and can be summed up in our oft said phrase "Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way". We're only interested in one statement, "WE BACK THE TROOPS". Highly footnoted, carefully nuanced and qualified statements like "we support the troops and not the war" doesn't support us, it trivalizes us at best and at worst re-enforces the will and agenda of the enemy. We don't want to cut and run. Take that as gospel. Victory is our only option, and not some hybridized academic version of victory that everyone is comfortable with. I'm talking about the species of victory that only comes from doing very bad things to very bad people until either they're dead, or demoralized into abject unconditional psyche changing surrender. We taking Unfolding of History 410 are tired of listening to the sophmoric rants of Self-fullfilling Prophesy 101 coming from down the hall. The war on terrorism is a war being fought tactically in Iraq, but strategically in the hearts and minds of America. "I support the troops, but not the war" is a little white flag being waved in another American head. The main weapons in the arsenal of the terrorists are uncertainty and fear. You might as well be loading another AK round into an insurgent's magazine. Saying "I back the troops" is the equivalent of saying you support us tactically and at the same time strategically. Anything less is self-annihilating blither which says we support you tactically, but will fight against you strategically. Or, as the great philosopher from the 1960's, Pogo, put it, "We have met the enemy and he is us." If at the end of the day this becomes the stance of the majority of fellow citizens, then we are to be pitied. Pity takes our sacrifice, freely given, and gives it back into the hands of our enemies. So next time you see a GI tell him what he needs to hear, "Kick Ass and Take Names." Or, just be honest with yourself and glare.

Want to show your gratitude, your support? Pay it forward. Go to New Orleans this year. Vacation. Volunteer. Whatever. Everything we fight for is there. Good food. Resiliency. Pretty women. Dedication to excellence. Fun. Freedom of expression. Music. The face of America shines in the streets of the Big Easy. If we weren't over in Iraq name tak'n and heart break'n that's were we'd love to be. So go! Send us a postcard.

Oh, one final thing, I'll be a panelist at the first ever milblogger conference that's going to held in DC April 22nd. This link has all the details. http://www.militarywebcom.org/MilBlogConference/11/Conference%20Panelists.html
If you come please say hi.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Back in the 60s there was an interesting word that was used regularly, but at the end of the day failed to make it into the progressive lexicon of subsequent decades. The word was grok, as in "to grok something", or "I grok what you're saying". Grok was a word coined by the author Robert Heinlein for his book Stranger in a Strange Land. The main character of this seminal bit of science fiction, Michael Smith, is an earthling who's returned to Earth after having been raised by Martians following the death of his human parents, the first visitors to Mars-think of him as Tarzan, but this time raised by ethereal beings of the most advanced intelligence rather than apes. He returns to Earth with a grab bag of highly evolved skills. For instance, by simply kissing a woman he triggers orgasmic paroxysms that would make Don Juan seem no more skilled than a 14 year old boy with a mouth full of braces on a first date. His greatest apptitude lies in his ability to "grok". A character in the book describes it thusly, "'Grok' means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed - to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science - and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man." Smith goes as far as to say that even were he falling to a horrible death from a skyscraper he would continue to grok the whole experience up to and including the instant of body shattering corporeal destruction. I worked very hard as an impressionable teenager to develop my groking skills hoping collateral side effects, especially those relative to kissing, would appear. Sadly they did not, but I did develop a penchant for taking it all in. Which, when I was married, did not always make for pleasant long distant car trips. Unlike many of my fellow males I will ask for directions, however I think my ex found soaking up the scenery was at the expense of paying less attention to her...something which ultimately did not sit well.

So, here I am back stateside groking America, feeling a little like a stranger in a strange land. This past week the actor Richard Belzer, from a bully-pulpit provided by HBO and Bill Maher, condescendingly disparaged the very same young Americans into whose able hands I placed my own life and limb into day after day in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm going to do my dardnest to tell the real story of these kids, but I find it a tad discourageing knowing that our culture has more of an appetite for the Belzers and Joel Steins (author of the LA Times "Warriors and Wusses" article) running rampant across the airways and printed pages of America. In fact, let me apologize for calling them "kids", they're highly competent 18 and 19 year old adults, something as rare in the malls and coffee shops here as life on Mars. Perhaps there in lies the rub, maybe it's just beyond a certain segment of our society, the one dependent on adolescent tastes and buying habits, that anyone under the age of 35 is capable of adulthood, let alone 18 and 19 year olds. There's two wonderful books, Millennials Rising by Neil Howe and William Strauss and Hard America, Soft America by Michael Barone, that do a super job of talking about this rising Best Generation Ever that I heartedly recommend. (See links) In the mean time I'm homesick for my little bungalow in a cozy neighborhood at Camp Fallujah, Hard America. http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-941-Hard_America_Soft_America_New_House_Divided.aspx
http://www.millennialsrising.com/

Tomorrow will mark my official return to the studio. This past week, after checking in off of leave the 17th, was devoted to a variety of administrative tasks. Because of my promotion to warrant officer and new responsiblities there are schools, conferences and training I needed to schedule and lock on for the next year. I also spent hours reviewing my sketchbooks, journal entries, several thousand combat photographs, audio recordings and videos. This is the intial phase of the alchemy that will hopefully result in some good paintings and watercolors.

One last thing, for those of you interested, I'm writing for the New York Times TimesSelect subscription website. The Times invited four milbloggers to contribute our thoughts and experiences about Iraq. I find it very interesting, especially in light of the recent criticism of the MSM, that they would go out of their way to identify and invite us to their forum. From what I can tell they couldn't find a voice negative about the war. This is based on the assumption that if they could have found one they certainly would have used them.
http://frontlines.blogs.nytimes.com/

On Vampires, Zombies and Snake Oil Salesmen

Well, I'll make it official...I miss it. I've been back three weeks and long to return. The rounds of kith and kin have been made; Mother visited, cat petted, plants watered and daughter followed through the mall with credit card in my hand.

Life for a wide circle of friends and relatives continued in my absence with a vengance. Plates were kept full. I can say with confidence they've endured far more of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than I did out in the goo. Life here was far stickier. There are ongoing messy divorces, uncertain job prospects, diseases ranging from lymphoma to Alzheimers and bipolar disorder, injuries from car accidents, several unexpected deaths and subsequent funerals to contend with along with all the attendant trivialities and irritations that flesh is heir to. It didn't help that my nephew and I were in Iraq. I'm a firm believer that the greatest dangerous we face are damage to our psyches, and based on that I've been far safer than anyone I know these past 5 months.

One of my favorite books is A Garlic Testament written by Stanley Crawford. Crawford writes with Thoreau-like lucidity about the life he and his wife share on a small New Mexico garlic farm. He muses in one of my favorite passages about the "vampire" comments his patrons often make as they rifle through the crates of pungent garlic stacked on the tailgate of his pickup truck. Almost to a person they quip in some form or another that he must have no trouble with vampires. Crawford recognizes that the comments, though meant to be funny, are about his customer's assumption that he leads an idylic rural life relatively free of the joy sucking realities of their suburban nightmares. To the garlic buyers he jovially banters back, "No vampires here.", but he assures his readers that he has his own set of problems threatening to drain the life out of him. Life in Iraq was a very dangerous place....physically, but there weren't any vampires. They were all busy it seems back home.

I've spent the last five months carefully observing people...Marines and Iraqis. Its an ingrained vocational habit. Now, back home, I'm growing intensely aware, by it's absence, of the life force, the elan vitale, that I was accustomed to experiencing everyday there in faces, body language and voices. Here, in the suburbia I grew up in, it seems like everyone has a cell phone stuck in an ear. Bluetooths, cordless ear devices for hands-off use, are everywhere; if you didn't know what they were you'd think there was an epidemic of folks talking to themselves. Forgive me, but something is missing from people's eyes, from their voices and carriage. They're not zombies yet, but neither are they fully alive. I recognize this observation is as much about my transition to being "back" as it is about the well worn rhetorical references on the numbing properties of modern life. The WWI generation innocently sang "how you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen Parie". Gregory Peck starred in a great post-WWII flick, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, which beautifully explored this topic, the veteran's return to the vagaries of everyday life. The movie The Deer Hunter, in the shadow of Vietnam, explored this theme's darker side. No doubt movies and books will follow in trace of this current war and carry on a literary tradition extending back to Homer's Odyssey.

The other thing I find myself contemplating is our "culture of hype". Over the past couple weeks I've found myself astride those deliberately uncomfortable mall benches waiting for my daughter to exit an Abercrombie and Fitch and convoy over to The Gap, or worse, Victoria's Secret. I've re-established intimacy with my television's remote and thereby reacquainted myself with all the major marketing campaigns underway aimed at America's purchasing psyche. I can't decide which one I find more offensive, the music blaring Abercrombie and Fitch stores selling $100 tattered blue jeans, or the "bucking chicken" Burger King commercials. Bucking chickens, come on now. But far and away the greatest bit of All-American snake oil salesmanship has to be the marketing of a one Bode Miller on the cover of Time magazine's January 23rd issue. How many products are there in that cover shot? Surely at least half a dozen marketing directors got bonuses as a result. And that unshaven heroic otherworldly look....Wow! Even we Marines are only allowed to look that cool in battle, but he gets to look that way all the time. Yes, that's jealousy you hear in my voice. Man, why did they even bother to have the Olympic competitions this guy was slated to be in, Time already declared him winner. Forget Abu Ghraib, secret presidential wire-taps and the UAE port deal, I want to know why this guy didn't win anything. Apparently an elite team of Playboy bunnies were sent in to sabotage him, so I'd start the investigation with Hugh Heffner or the marketing gurus of several brands of alcoholic beverages. Even Time had the honesty to print a tiny article about his demise, it was buried in the back of a subsequent issue no where near any advertising pages. Fictional hype always looks better on the cover than the truth. Fortunately, at least according to several googled articles, he won't forfeit most of his marketing deals....whew, there is a God.

Leave will be over next week and I'll be back in the studio. Standing on soap boxes and dissecting popular culture is just a fun little diversion set aside for vacations. Andy Rooney is safe.

15 Minutes of Fame on Tuesday

We departed Kuwait in the early hours of Wednesday, the 15th. A convoy of comfortable buses transported us from Camp Victory to the jumping off point for the chartered flight that would wing us home. There were the usual hurry up and wait moments, but spirits were high and the delays taken in stride. Our aircraft was a wide body civilian jet, and I had my first taste of being an officer; I got a seat in first-class.....NICE! Among the officers and senior NCOs sitting in luxury was a private first class. One of the gunnery sergeants orchestrating the seating went to the main cabin and asked for a volunteer. Initially no one responded, but a lowly PFC raised his hand and was rewarded with the last open seat in first-class.

Once airborne we learned that there would be a brief lay-over in Shannon, Ireland. My great-grandfather came over from the Emerald Isle in 1892, and the joy of heading home was heightened all the more by the realization that I would being setting foot for the first time on mother soil. We flew into Shannon before sunrise. As we descended beneath the clouds far below a lighthouse's rotating beacon fanning out across the ocean caught my eye and I felt my heart, in the words of James Joyce, "softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves".

The last couple days, courtesy of jet lag, have been a bit of a blur. Come this Wednesday our post-deployment processing will be completed and myself and travel companion, LtCol Craig Covert, a Marine Corps historian, will be returning to Quantico. My family has a welcome home party planned on the 25th for my nephew Joey and myself in our hometown in Pennsylvania. Joey, a 1st lieutenant with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, returned from Iraq back the end of January. As you can imagine, there is a great extended family of kith and kin breathing a collective sigh of relief.

On Friday Mike Phillips, the Wall Street Journal reporter I traveled with, informed me that an article he penned about yours truly is going to appear on the WSJ's page B-1 on Tuesday. So, I've got 15 minutes of fame to look forward to.

Here are the final pieces I produced in Iraq. I find myself already missing the exhausted resolute faces of fellow Marines, the scenes of commraderie and the rows of humble HESCO barrier encased tents.

Don't Sell the Farm Ray

We're out of Iraq and spending a few days de-compressing in a large transient tent city in Kuwait called Camp Victory before making the final leg of the journey stateside. Our arrival was in the wee hours of the morning and we we're greeted by comfortable buses. The stacks of seabags and backpacks were trucked right to the front of our hooch. We only had to drag them thankfully a few yards to our racks, dig out sleeping bags and collapse. Our flack jackets are now packed away and ammunition turned back in.

I'm writing this in a cozy, and I do mean cozy, internet cafe at the "Paradise Sands" USO center. This large otherwise non-descript building is awash in peaceful atmospheric lighting and comfy IKEA furnishings. If you've ever been in an IKEA store then you've probably seen a glass case with a pneumatic contraption making a kaa-shish sound over and over again flexing their signature easy-chair. Well there are lines of those chairs facing a couple big screen TVs. In the center of this cavernous space are piles of overstuffed pillows piled on top of matching sofa size cushions. I can hear the sound of dice rattling around in a cup coming out from a huddle of Marines playing a game of Phase 10. Along the perimeter are groupings of low over-stuffed sofas worthy of an episode of "Friends". Overhead are hanging playful Alexander Caulder mobiles gently turning in the air. You have to take your combat boots off when first entering and folks are padding about the carpeted floor in stocking feet. I feel like I'm back in kindergarten. God Bless the USO...this place feels a little like a mythic place that's on all our minds...HOME.

Those of you who've been gracious enough to follow my journey can probably guess my politics. I've tried to stay off of that soap box. If you ever read Victor Davis Hanson you'll get a pretty good idea where I stand. When 9/11 happened I was a card carrying dyed in the wool liberal registered Democrat. The religion stamped on my dogtags was Unitarian. Progressive ideas and thinking still inform alot of my core values. So, in many ways I, like alot of you, resist being labeled. But unlike alot of you and many very liberal friends, I have had the benefit being out here on the front lines in the War on Terrorism. I'm like the brother-in-law of Ray Kinsella in the movie "Field of Dreams" who, when finally seeing the ball players, speaks out of his epiphany those immortal words, "don't sell the farm Ray". This is a good fight. It is worth our blood and treasure. Let's not sell the farm just yet.

Two For the Road

*Click on images to enlarge







All good things must come to an end. This sojourn to Iraq is quickly drawing to a close and Friday night I'll start my return trip to the land of the big PX. For a final time an ASR number will be scrawled on the back of my left hand. In the darkness one last "seabag drag", weighted down with ALL my gear, into the back of a waiting helo. The dark expanse of Iraq will glide below us. Into memory will fade golden fragments of light spilling out from windows and doorways of Iraqi homes. A strand of silvery beads coiling across the landscape marking the midnight path of a coalition convoy will disappear like a wisp of smoke. I suspect I'll feel both drawn home and wanting to stay. I wonder if there is word for this, a word like bittersweet; a word that captures the tension of opposites. I've just lived five months in a world populated by real men and women engaged in what the philosopher and historian Victor Davis Hanson calls "muscular idealism". Individuals who know what Stanley Crawford, the author of A Garlic Testament meant by the "pound weight of the real at ground level". Something in me is wary of the unreality that awaits me back home. I will walk the streets of my beautiful little Virgina river town in the quiet of an early spring evening to my favorite coffee shop unarmed. There won't be the staccato sound of distant gunfire, or the deafening crack of a cannon followed by the sound of an artillery round splitting the air with the intensity of a raging locomotive. I'll make a visit to the mall to replace my scratched up spectacles and have no urgent concerns about the crowds of civilians or the cars and pick-up trucks driving where ever they like. In the mall and at the coffee shop there will be conversations about who said what to who, plans for the weekend, job prospects, complaints about the boss and a plethora of subjects that I fear will strike me as inconsequential and banal. Will I jump at the sound of a car backfiring or a door slamming? Will I have to suppress the urge to tell some twenty-something-college student with his hat on sideways smoking a clove cigarette to please stop whinning about Econ 101? Will I hear the far keening of the pipes? I imagine I will.

Here are two artworks for the road. A nameless Marine taking a knee looks out across the broad expanse of Iraq. The buffer zone between every single one of us and the terrorists starts about two hundred yards in front of him. The terrorist knows what a good shot he is and keeps a wary distance. But more than that, they know this young American, barely out of high school, given the chance, will kill him at any distance surely as God made little green apples. They know they are up against the greatest warriors on the planet. These are the civilized world's name takers and heartbreakers. Somewhere this kid from your hometown learned to love his country and his brother Marines more than himself. Somehow this kid from your son's 2nd grade class decided to act on the belief that there are some things bigger than ones self, ideas that both require and are worthy of his blood and treasure. This young man from down the street who delivered your morning paper and had a crush on your daughter knows who he's willing to die for, YOU. Three I knew did just that, LCpl Deeds of Mississippi, Cpl Rogers of Oklahoma and Lt McGlothlin of Virginia. Their blood, their last full measure is now mixed forever with the soil of Iraq. They lived and breathed a life where words like courage, honor and country were not strangers in town. The other is a portrait of Lance Corporal Lucas Turchich. It's based on a photo I took of him during a fifteen minute pause sandwiched between assaults in Husayba, Iraq. This is one of the "rough men" willing to do violence on your behalf. Sleep well. He's out there on watch tonight.

I'll be making more posts in the near future. After a couple weeks of leave with my daughter it'll be into the studio and the creation of finished watercolors and paintings. There is also a whole series of photo "abstractions" that I plan on posting. Iraq was visually rich in wonderfully textured and distressed surfaces and objects. Thanks to all of you who've visited me over the past five months. Semper Fi.

You can have your Army khakis, you can have your Navy blues
But I’ve a different fighting man to introduce to you
His uniform is different than any you’ve ever seen
The Germans called us devildogs, our real name is Marine


We were born on Parris Island, the land that God forgot
The sand was 18 inches deep, the sun was blazing hot
We get up every morning way before the sun
And run a hundred miles or more before the day is done


Over a million have come and gone who’ve called themselves Marine
We live by the motto “Semper fi”, let me tell you what it means
Always faithful to our nation, and faithful to the Lord
But first of all we’re faithful to our comrades in the Corps


We died on the beach at Guadalcanal and we died in Vietnam
We died in the mud at Belleau Wood and we died in Lebanon
And when we got to heaven Saint Peter we did tell
Another Marine reporting sir, I’ve served my time in hell


*Traditional marching chant from Marine Corps Boot Camp

The Things They Live By


I've included a link below to a site where there's a music video called "On My Watch Tonight". It's written and performed by a Marine, Mike Corrado. I hope you check it out. Oh, and have box of tissues handy.


http://www.mikecorrado.com/music-3.html

By the Twos

*Click on images to enlarge


From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.

M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, Old Ubaydi


Corporal Koppes' Patrol, Ubaydi


Sniper Team Gearing Up


Stretcher Bearers


Filling Sandbags


Sergeant Ryan S. Becze USMC


LCpl Collin G. Neier USMC


Pat Dollard, Neo-con Gonzo Documentarian

Michael Phillips, The Wall Street Journal

Là á Bhlà ir's math na Cà irdean
Friends are good in the day of battle
(On the memorial stone of the 51st Highland Division at St Valery)

Marines, hardy individualists all, don't do anything solo when outside the wire. Every NCO or officer briefing a patrol or convoy peppers their instructions with two phrases, two non-negotiable operational concepts; battle buddies and guardian angels. The principle is simple, together we survive, alone we die. Whether filling sandbags, assigned the odious task of burning human waste, bearing a stretcher, patrolling or going out to snipe, you never go it alone, EVER. Today's photos and artwork are illustrative of this.

The two individuals whose photographs appear today, Michael Phillips of The Wall Street Journal and Hollywood documentary film maker Pat Dollard, were my battle buddies while at Ar Ramadi's Observation Post Horea. These two gentlemen, though fundamentally different creatively and politically, have fearlessly shared the common lot of the Marines here in Iraq. Mike was here on his fourth visit and Pat his third. Mike, a seasoned photo-journalist, works diligently to maintain the aloof impartiality of a judge even while enduring all the dangers and hardships faced by the Marines he covers. In addition to dispatches appearing regularly in The Wall Street Journal, he's also written a book entitled The Gift of Valor: A War Story. Lest one thinks his prose is limited to arid reporting, his reviewers assure us that this book displays the hand of a sensitive and evocative wordsmith. This intimate account of the life and heroic death of Medal of Honor nominee Corporal Jason Dunham leaves only the most hardened unmoved and dry eyed. Although he dons all the necessary protective combat gear, his fleece pullover and blue jeans leave no doubt that he's a non-combatant. On the back of his flack jacket is a large strip of duck tape with bold indelible ink letters spelling out PRESS. I asked him why he didn't have the same word in Arabic, and without blinking an eye responded, "it's there for the Marines, not the insurgents". The war in Iraq has been deadlier for members of the fourth estate than any other conflict. Pat Dollard, on the other hand, is a wild eyed zealot freshly descended from the mountain living on locusts and honey. He has found his long lost tribe, the Marines, and he's gone unapologetically native. A former Hollywood talent agent and producer, he's now living out a Hunter S. Thompsonesque complete immersion into the Heart of Darkness I now see the light who are these incredible human beings called Marines experience. Other than a usually unshaved mug, lack of rank insignia and weapon, he is indistinguishable from the jarheads he follows everywhere with camera shouldered and jaunty cigarette dangling from his lip. But don't let this description lead you to believe that Dollard is not the genuine article or that he's going off half-cocked with nary a plan. This is an articulate film maker on a mission. There is method in his madness and hopefully in the very near future the fruits of his labor will grace our television screens. Being with these two was enlightening, enriching and just plain fun.

The two individual portrait drawings show a duo best described as a pair of modern day Gunga Dins. Sergeant Becze and Lance Corporal Neier, assigned to Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, together spent their days and nights during Operation River Gate in Haditha running food, water and ammunition to Marines out on the front lines. Time after time they left the relative safety of a firm base in an open back HUMVEE packed with essentials and navigated their way to isolated units through battle scarred alleyways. Often they returned with a load of enemy prisoners of war(EPWs)in their care. These guys, in danger coming and going, performed with a smile and the confidence that only comes from knowing that a buddy is always covering your six.

Finally, I give you a pair of inanimate objects; two M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks as they move into position in support of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment on the evening of November 15, 2005 in Old Ubaydi, Iraq. On the following day these behemoths would come dashing to the rescue of a pinned down unit, and become more than mere machines to the besieged 3rd Squad, 2nd Platoon of Fox Company. Each of these tanks has a team of four Marines on foot providing external security, and on the morning of November 16th one of these escorts, in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, probably earned a Navy Cross. Insurgents were throwing hand grenades from the roof of a hotly contested house, and Corporal A (I'll leave him anonymous until the award is approved and presented), down and seriously wounded in both legs, picked up a grenade and tried to toss it back inside. Unfortunately it detonated before he could get it completely inside amputating his right hand, but his selfless act of courage prevented anyone else from being killed or wounded.