City Aflame- Original

18 x 24 x .75 Acrylic on stretched canvas

As a combat veteran, days such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Patriot Day mean a great deal to me. For me, it is not flag waving and chants of USA, though. They are somber days, days of remembrance for the people who have died in service or risked death in service to us. These are our sons and daughters, our siblings, our brothers and sisters. They loved. They had families, pets. They had laughs that stick with their families like shadows. They are lost stars in somebody's universe. And they deserve to be remembered.

I began painting this piece and it's sister, City Reborn on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I was in Army basic training on the day of the attacks. We went from going to the range for marksmanship training and learning drill and ceremony stuff to manning checkpoints and roadblocks in the course of 24 hours. I was a new a soldier and there was no question that we were about to go to war. To me, this image is how it felt. I knew it wasn't just two buildings. The future was going to be on fire.