I’m happy to report my artwork, MOPP Ops, was selected for the Student Veterans of America Presents: Warpaint art competition. It is a piece I drew back in 2006; it is sarcastic without being offensive and playful in light of inconveniences service members face on deployments.  To honor my service branch, I used a double mat to frame the drawing.  It has a larger blue mat with an inner smaller red mat to mimic the blood stripe on the NCO and Officer dress blues uniform trousers.   It will be shown at the National Conference in San Antonio from January 8-11th.  I won’t be in attendance, but Joanna Sweatt, our Military Advocate at ASU, will be going.  It’s such a great opportunity for her.  Medal of Honor recipient Corporal Kyle Carpenter (USMC ret.) and Shoshana Johnson (Army), the first African American female Prisoner of War (POW), are among the panelists scheduled for this event.

The top 40 pieces will later be unveiled in Washington D.C.  The top three competitors will receive scholarships and financial assistance to attend the unveiling.  I am putting the horse before the cart, but if I’m one of those three, I could use the scholarship money to help fund my t-shirt project.

I also wanted to share some news about female veteran issues.  Awhile back, I noticed the VA had some female service awareness information on their site and this morning, I found an article written about this action.

Back in 2010, I took photos of my daughter with my combat boots. A few of those photos are shown below.