A couple of Patriotic twists (as an artist) for you to ponder

For me a way to be "patriotic" back in the day, was to illustrate for the US Military/Govt. Not only as a soldier from 1980-1984, but as a civil servant from 1984-1988.

One of the most gratifying jobs was to illustrate the steps to firing a Stinger missile launcher - used in the field as a training manual. Mostly because I had to teach myself to use technical pens (on the job) and get-it-right the first time - talk about stress on the job!


Me at my drafting Table (circa 1984) with an Authentic Stinger Weapon on the top of my table as model/reference, (it had to be under constant supervision & locked-away @ the end of each day) All the while my stupid-visor (who couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler) looked over my shoulder 4 an excuse to get on my case!

Here's the funny coincidence to my story,... I recently saw the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" starring Tom Hanks on DVD. It was pretty interesting to me especially because in the movie Wilson (Hank's character) dedicates his canny political efforts to supply the Afghan mujahidin with the weapons and support to defeat the Soviet Union. He convinced his fellow congressmen on the appropriations committee to divert funds covertly to Afghanistan's "freedom fighters", supplying them with anti-aircraft weaponry that could take down their bete noire, the Soviets' Mi-24D (Hind) attack helicopter. which I illustrated also (a missile exploding upon heat-sinking proximity)



The movie tells the (based on true) story of the Texas Congressman who played a pivotal role in getting substantial funding to the Mujahedin in Afghanistan, eventually leading to the forced withdrawal of the Russians, thereby paving the way for the downfall of the Soviet Empire - as told by this movie at least.








Drawn on 30"x40" sheets of white board & printed same size for Training Manual. Just another reason to show my (not-so-colorful) Art Past to ya'll

Obviously, its '80s timeline separates the film from 2007 but, more strikingly, Charlie Wilson's War doesn't refer to the Taliban or al-Qa'ida at all, despite the uncomfortable fact that the weapons the US smuggled to the Afghan rebels later wound up in the hands of the Taliban and quite possibly al-Qa'ida.

I Know for a fact that my little book of training manual art wasn't translated into arabic or some other language that's further from "Greek 2 me" - but it is a freaky connection, none-the-less.

Please leave me a comment guys and gals, that way at least I'll know someone is reading...

Thanks, Victor