Another Veteran Day contribution. A fellow soldier is the subject of chow time on the Mortar Range. Note the crates of 81mm mortar rounds on the horizon. Hard work placing those on target.

“Born to Eat” was an outward expression of the inwardly held values of this fellow soldier we  photographed when it was all fun and games, before the empire-building-shit hit the fan big time. The price for that can be seen here, fitting and reverent photos by Magnum shooter Paul Fusco. But on this Veterans Day we recall fondly our contribution to our nation’s defense. Everything we needed to know we learned in infantry school, Ft. Benning, but never put our skills to test in the great combat actions of our time, having served in the Army National Guard’s Rainbow Division, whose distinctive patch is composed of blue for the seas we never crossed, red for the blood we never shed, and yellow for the reason why. Missed the liberation of Grenada and the friendly fire casualties of that war are sadly remembered today. Missed the freeing of Panama from dictatorship and as Gulf War I broke, we were on the Lido in Venice, polishing a degree in Renaissance Venetian painting; between Titian and titties, we missed the deployment. But our cohorts who served and marched passed Iraqi armor shot through with depleted uranium rounds and returned with a still unrecognized chronic illness, we don’t envy.  And today we also recall shaping up at the funeral of Pfc. Luis Moreno, 19, of the Bronx, attached to the 69th Infantry, he caught a bullet standing on a street corner in Baghdad, guarding a gas station and became the unit’s first combat death in 2004. His uniformed corpse looking out of place in that Bronx funeral home and his grieving relatives, to a person, could not utter one word explaining what his death was for. Seven years down the road, that still remains unanswered.

Cute LA woman on the patio of The Oaks Coffee shop, Hollywood, CA