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     I got the inspiration to paint this picture one day while out for a ride when we stopped at Dunkin Donuts. There were a few newspaper boxes there so I went over to look at the headlines and saw faces I will never forget. The urgency, the braveness, connected to a little fear tore at my heart. I bought the paper and spent a week looking at it. I never pained faces before so I knew this would be a challenge. But, I decided that painting this picture was very important and I was up for the challenge.

      Since the photo said AP on it I had to call to get permission to paint it. At first the idea of painting it wasn't received well but they asked me to write a letter explaining why I wanted to paint it. My answer was "I am a 74 year old woman who can't do much for her country but pray. I need to honor these men and there would be no charge for this painting or anything I do for our service men". They connected me to Kuni Takahashi who took the photo. I got his approval and he sent me an email giving me permission on condition that I send him a print of my painting.

      When I began the painting I learned that I needed to know what they were wearing as the photo wasn't quite clear. The American Legion helped me a lot with that. I also needed to know what the guns looked like and what color they were. One of the men gave me a magazine showing the guns and I drew them in the picture. The guns were not showing in the photo. They thanked me for painting the picture and wished me luck. I sent a print to Kuni who wrote back "your painting is hanging in the hallway of The Boston Herald".

      This was not the first picture I painted honoring our service men. My first inspiration came after 9/11, I entered the Strawbridge Art League Patriot Show at the Henegar Center in Melbourne with a painting I did of my father getting his honors after 44 years and a painting of the POW/MIA ceremony. The paintings were shown in the King Center in Melbourne, Florida and the Government Center in Florida. I also entered my Marines painting in the Strawbridge Art League 2003 Vision show and it rested for a month at the theatre at the Kennedy Space Center with thousands of people viewing them. I sent four paintings of my father's services and a POW/MIA for the casualty. One went in the archives, one outside the General's Office, and two in the casualty. Of the Marine paintings one is at Camp Lejuene, N.C., one is at Patrick's Air Force Base and another is at the American Legion of Florida.