i solemnly swear

"i solemnly swear" is an exhibition about the consequences of conscription and deployment into combat. I was drafted into the US Army in 1967 and deployed to Vietnam in 1968. At Fort Dix I was trained to be the "Ultimate Weapon," an infantry soldier with a rifle and bayonet.
I should never have been a soldier, and yet, I was a good soldier. For this reason, I am haunted by what I did and what I witnessed. When people say, "Thank you for your service," my reply is, "Don't thank me for my service, you don't know what I did, my country made me do it and I was just a kid."

Before being drafted, I was a naive, ordinary, middle class nerd who loved to dance. After combat as an artillery forward observer in the highlands of Vietnam, I returned to my country with a jaundiced eye. The world was dark and I felt like an alien in my own country. Realizing that our government, our country, was willing to sacrifice us soldiers as a matter of foreign policy and economics brought into question all the tenets of my upbringing. Invading another country under false premises has instilled distrust and cynicism of our country and society. I looked at the world around me and wondered—I still wonder—who these people are that would be complicit or look the other way. Before conscription, I thought I was living in an era of American exceptionalism where people were friendly and the government was good because it was founded on noble principles and guided by a solid constitution and rules of law. After being discharged, I realized it was actually American deceptionalism. At its core, American deceptionalism is nationalism disguised as patriotism. I see patriotism as a political vehicle for power and wealth-building. Patriotism is used to sell mattresses and red, white, and blue beer. This collection of work reflects my inability to escape the trauma of my experience.

From a very early age, our culture exposes children to the made-up version of war. Boys especially play war with physical "weapons" or violent computer games. They make no connection to the actual damage and pain of real war. That was my life: we were indoctrinated. It was normal to let children role-play at killing each other. I played war and even made lead soldiers. My parents supplied the uniforms and weapons. I never made the connection to real war. I discovered that during WWI children played with lead soldiers similar to mine. The difference was that their soldiers included the wounded. There were bandaged soldiers, stretcher bearers, and nurses. I wonder how the children playing with these wounded toy soldiers saw the world and thought about the war they represent. I have created photographs using these "toys" to imagine what could have been going through these young minds. I have embedded my face, both current and as a child, in some of my toy soldiers to illustrate the connection between play and reality.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, I can't escape the helpless feeling I get realizing we have not learned this lesson. The world is at war, and preparing for future wars. Governments divert resources from humanitarian causes to weapons and ammunition. Over the last three years more than a million people have died and the only solution appears to be adding more armaments and ammunition. Unfortunately, this is only one of the world's current wars.
My work is an expression of grief. My work is my therapy. My work is a silent cry for peace of mind and peace in the world.