Born: Birmingham, Alabama, 1947
Served in Vietnam, U.S. Marine Corps,
3rd Combined Action Group
Phu Bai and Hue,
Rifleman, 1969

From the Artist:

From a letter: I was assigned to the 3d Combined Action Group (CAP) in I Corps in South Vietnam. Each CAP comprised fifteen Marines and a Navy corpsman. Each was attached to a South Vietnamese Popular Forces unit, comparable to our National Guard. Each CAP was assigned to a village, for which we provided security and on-the-job training. We had no base and moved constantly from location to location throughout the area. For my first six months in country I never saw the inside of a military base. Among CAP units casualties were high. I did what was required of me and then I went home.

For many years the war seemed to have happened yesterday, seldom out of my mind. Then I woke up one morning and it was far in the past. I don't know why.

I paint but seldom exhibit because I cannot stand the false faces that so many people in the arts seem so determined to wear. I seldom speak with other veterans because of the false faces forced on them by their homecoming. Intellectualizations of artists and war stories should always be suspect.