CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Hunched side-by-side over palettes splotched with bright oil paints, a giant canvas looming overhead, the men look like seasoned professionals at ease with their craft. But these wounded Marines have only been oil painters for a few months, and the scene they're creating is intensely personal: an homage to fellow Marines lost in a very recent tragedy.
At Wounded Warrior Battalion East's Hope and Care Center athletic complex here, a sunlit foyer smelling lightly of chlorine has become an art studio. The man behind the transformation is Craig Bone, an acclaimed wildlife artist who hails from Zimbabwe and whose melancholy depiction of a Vietnam War scene hangs in the Pentagon.
Together, Bone and a handful of Marines from the battalion have created lifelike scenes memorializing seven MARSOC troops who died March 10 when their UH-60 Black Hawk crashed during a training exercise; and six Marines lost in Nepal May 12 when their UH-1Y Huey went down. They're planning next to create a detailed battle scene from Fallujah, Iraq, using the likenesses of some of the Marine painters to depict the troops in combat.
Bone, who was severely wounded in his right leg by a 1977 mortar blast while serving in a paratrooper unit in the Rhodesian war, knows firsthand the power of painting as means of healing. After moving to the U.S. seven years ago to escape political and civil unrest under President Robert Mugabe, Bone settled near Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, where two of his sons-in-law were stationed. He continued his work there, contributing artwork to the base's new Air Force Special Operations Museum.
Photo Credit: Daniel Woolfolk
But, he said, he had dreams of painting scenes of recent military history from life, using real tactical vehicles, equipment and uniformed troops as models. After trying unsuccessfully to work out a way to do just that at Bragg, he looked 100 miles southeast to Lejeune. And that was how Wounded Warrior Battalion troops became the beneficiaries of his new partnership with the Red Cross focused on helping wounded troops find healing through painting.
For a number of Bone's Marine co-painters, the first collaborative project with the artist was the staging of the planned Fallujah scene. Bone obtained permission to bring Hhumvees and other tactical equipment out to Lejeune's Military Operations in Urban Terrain village, a training area filled with structures and props designed to simulate urban combat.
For some, recreating the violent days of Phantom Fury was its own sort of therapy. Adel Abudayeh, a medically retired Marine staff sergeant who deployed to Fallujah as an infantryman with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines in 2004, sustaining leg and back injuries, found himself back in uniform with another Marine who had been in his squad on that deployment.
"There were certain times that we both got silent and drift in memory," Abudayeh, 32, said of staging the scene. "We were trying to bring our fallen brothers back to life."
Retired Staff Sergeant, Adel Abudayeh, Cpl. Barney Oldfield and artist Craig Boone are seen in front of paintings they are working on honoring fallen Marines on Camp Lejeune, NC on Friday, June 19, 2015. Bone has spent the past three months working with wounded Marines to create paintings that honor service members' service. (Daniel Woolfolk]/Staff)
Photo Credit: Daniel Woolfolk/Staff
Plans to paint the ten 10-year-old battle scene were put on hold, however, when Bone and the Marines learned about a fast-approaching May 15 memorial reception at Camp Lejeune for the families of the MARSOC fallen. They threw themselves into painting a portrait of the MARSOC troops striking a defensive position with their weapons in tactical gear, some sporting blue-and-red Raider patches, a Black Hawk hovering in the distance. They recruited friends of the fallen Marines to pose for the image.
When they finally began to paint, they had just two weeks to complete the work in time for the reception. It was a trial-by-fire way to learn the craft, from paint mixing and application to composition. The Marines likened their strategy to "paint-by-numbers": after establishing the scene they wish to paint, they trace it and project the outline onto the canvas. Then the collaborators can create their scene one patch of color at a time.
Bone, who has taught about 50 people to paint by his own recollection, said it's his way of expressing gratitude after his own life was spared in combat. For the troops painting scenes of fallen brothers-in-arms, he said the healing power of the art is intensified.
"These Marines are painting their own history," he said "I don't think anyone has done this before."
Cpl. Barney Oldfield works on a painting honoring recently fallen Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC on Friday, June 19, 2015. He is working under Craig Bone, who has spent the past three months working with wounded Marines to create paintings that honor service members' service. (Daniel Woolfolk]/Staff)
Photo Credit: Daniel Woolfolk/Staff
Cpl. Barney Oldfield works on a painting honoring recently fallen Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC on Friday, June 19, 2015. He is working under Craig Bone, who has spent the past three months working with wounded Marines to create paintings that honor service members' service. (Daniel Woolfolk]/Staff)
Photo Credit: Daniel Woolfolk/Staff
Cpl. Barney Oldfield, an infantryman who came to Wounded Warrior Battalion to recover from degenerative disc disease and post-traumatic stress, said he has noticed a remarkable change since he started painting: while he's working, it doesn't make him anxious when people walk up behind him.
"It's like you're putting more of your focus into your painting and what you're doing and trying to get the whole picture and visualize what it's going to look like when you're done," he said. "It just kind of distracts your mind from everything else that's around you. So that's really relaxing and it's really helpful."
Oldfield, 26, said he had enjoyed creating art in high school, but had no formal background in painting. But when he heard about Bone coming to the battalion to create art, he jumped at the chance to get involved.
The painters finished the "MARSOC 7" painting just in time to display it at the memorial reception, attended by families of the fallen as well as Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. They plan to distribute prints to each family, and to find a place to display the original where Marines can come to visit it.
Retired Marine Sergeant, Christopher Greenleaf, and Cpl. Barney Oldfield work on a painting honoring recently fallen Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC on Friday, June 19, 2015. In the foreground is another painting the two have work on with artist Craig Bone, who has spent the past three months working with wounded Marines to create paintings that honor service members' service. (Daniel Woolfolk]/Staff)
Photo Credit: Daniel Woolfolk/Staff
They're now at work on "Nepal 6," an homage to those fallen Marines drawn from composite photos of the troops boarding a Huey in the days prior to the fatal crash. They have not yet decided where that painting will end up once it's complete.
For Chris Greenleaf, a medically retired sergeant recovering from deployment wounds and post-traumatic stress, the painting takes his mind off physical pain and future uncertainty.
"It's relaxing, a stress reliever. It gets me out of the house," he said. He joked that he would continue to paint with Bone "until he fires me."
While Bone still plans to complete the Fallujah painting with the men, he said not every piece of art they create will be related to the military and to war.
"I'll slowly wean them away from the military side of things and we do owls and horses and cats and things like that," he said of his strategy. "Initially, they want to be back with their mates in the war. I just wean them off that into gentle subjects."
