Where did you serve and what did you do?
Army 67-71 DC, Germany, Vietnam, 81-E illustrator, Draftsman, combat artist in Vietnam. Assigned to ASA headquarters in DC. Volunteered to go to Germany.
Did the charts for the 69 congressional study of our bases in Europe and general drafting assignments as needed. Volunteered for Vietnam to be a draftsman for communications SEATS and was also TDY to the 221st combat arts and photo company.
Was part of a four-man art team to paint the history of the war. Library of Congress has 85 sketches and five paintings of my work that I left with the 221st before I left Vietnam. Look under my name or veterans history project. In 2002, the VVA magazine did a two-page layout of some of my work.
How are you #StillServing?
What I do now is students of all ages call me or their teachers and ask if they can do a book report or oral report about my work. I also have volunteered at the VA hospital for the last ten years and before that, I held a coffee and art class at the Minnesota Masonic Home for about twenty years.
I have donated murals in our community and artwork for fundraisers. I also served on two boards, Bloomington Arts Center and a charity board for our church. I was honored to receive the MN Humanities Award for lifetime achievement, built my own home as therapy from PTSD and raised my two sons from ages 12 and 15 as a single parent.
Now besides volunteering, I added gardens to my yard so as to donate fresh veggies to the local food shelf. There is a painting of junk boats in Saigon that I donated to the National Vietnam Museum of Art in Chicago. The building on the far left was our intelligence building during the war.
Why do you do it?
Fellow vets did not survive as well as I after front-line duty.