Teaching the Track

 

I know there was a lot of assisting and aiding going on and I didn't witness much of teaching the different vehicles but it did happen. This was one time when some officers had the chance to get some training and teaching from one of the NCO's from the battalion on the function and ability of one of the track vehicles.

 

From the stand point of a composition, I wanted to get just enough of the track vehicle into the frame but not so much it became the focal point. I am not sure if the values here are able to play into that or make that happen, so some changes may need to occur before I put it into color.

 

Charge!

Out of the Shadows

 

When I saw this coming up, walking down the trail, I knew I would be painting this. There was a huge overgrowth of vegetation and had created a tunnel of sorts that we walked through. You are able to see here that as much as we tried to assist and aid and teach and mentor there were times when all we did was go out on patrol and conduct our operations while the Iraqi counterparts were chillin' and talkin' with their buddies. The language barrier was enough that with only one interpreter it was difficult to make large leaps of progress. The actual training that was conducted was the most more instructional. The palm grove walks were great for me to get some cool reference and see how the local farmers worked.