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Description
Oils on canvas
14 x 11"
1982

This is from a photo I took on a hill in Vietnam in 1967. It was sandbagged for we Marines, a permanent Outpost. At the top of the hill was a rather large main bunker, where our commanding officer spent most of his time. One of two radio operators was always there too (I was one of the radio operators). At night we'd hear animals, mostly rats, rats as big as cats rummaging around the perimeter. We'd pop a flare to light up the hill just in case it was enemy probing the hill. The flares I painted were not in my photo--in fact the photo was taken during the day. It's made up from memory of how interesting it was to see how our flares really worked. They had a little bowl with white phosphorus that burned so bright as to light up the night. Once popped from a hand held canister, the thing would go up some 1000 ft., then a parachute would open and the phosphorus would ignite at the same time. It would take some five minutes for the flare to descend, and burn out.

After Vietnam, I simply went out and took a photo of a local church and used it as a reference for this painting where the main bunker was. Why are our sand-bagged bunkers empty? Well, in Vietnam we were fighting "godless communism", the implication being that we were there to protect religion. Truth be known, much of Vietnam was Catholic then, and still is today.

Just to show how one can take elements of reality and rearrange them into a thoughtful picture.

Description
Oils on canvas
14 x 11"
1982

This is from a photo I took on a hill in Vietnam in 1967. It was sandbagged for we Marines, a permanent Outpost. At the top of the hill was a rather large main bunker, where our commanding officer spent most of his time. One of two radio operators was always there too (I was one of the radio operators). At night we'd hear animals, mostly rats, rats as big as cats rummaging around the perimeter. We'd pop a flare to light up the hill just in case it was enemy probing the hill. The flares I painted were not in my photo--in fact the photo was taken during the day. It's made up from memory of how interesting it was to see how our flares really worked. They had a little bowl with white phosphorus that burned so bright as to light up the night. Once popped from a hand held canister, the thing would go up some 1000 ft., then a parachute would open and the phosphorus would ignite at the same time. It would take some five minutes for the flare to descend, and burn out.

After Vietnam, I simply went out and took a photo of a local church and used it as a reference for this painting where the main bunker was. Why are our sand-bagged bunkers empty? Well, in Vietnam we were fighting "godless communism", the implication being that we were there to protect religion. Truth be known, much of Vietnam was Catholic then, and still is today.

Just to show how one can take elements of reality and rearrange them into a thoughtful picture.