The Journey

Being a scrapbooker, if that is a title, I wanted to try & keep up with my brother’s travels while in the Army. Of course I didn’t have many photos to use but I had lots of email and updates to create a journal scrapbook. While we were in SC for his basic graduation I took random shots of things most people wouldn’t waste their time on. The door to his dorm was painted with a skull and they all had a not so nice nickname for their Sergeant, I took his photo as well during “family day”. Paul talked about how much walking they had to do in their Army boots, so I took a picture of those when he wasn’t paying attention, his bunk made up neatly like a good soldier, his locker when he was showing it to all of us, and even the mail he got in a pile. Another thing I did was take one of his letters and reduce it on a copy machine, and then put it in the scrapbook. When Paul returned from his first tour in Iraq I sat with him and looked at each picture. I asked him for more details on each. Then I looked up the images on line for more information. Many places are shown when they were newer – no current photos, like Mosques in the 70’s, but I still was able to print additional information to put in the book with Paul’s photos. I found facts about the Tigris River and about the Sword Sculpture that he took photos and video of. Most guys are not good with detail and/or memories so this was a way for Paul, years from now, to have something to look back on when he was a young soldier.

Paul at the Tigris 07