Onto some sheets, the vets screen photographs taken while on duty. They turn other pieces into personal journals or books. The veterans sell their paper through the combatpaper.org Web site and during speaking tours to fund the project. Later this month, Cameron and four other Combat Paper vets will begin a cross-country workshop-and-lecture tour, which will take them from Vermont to the San Francisco Public Library and back. The group will continue the tour in Europe this spring.
The goal is to create an extended community of vets and active-duty troops and reach out to the civilian community. “I would have benefited so greatly when I was overseas if I had known my fellow brothers and sisters in arms were talking about the war back home, were pushing back,” says Cameron. “It would have been completely eye-opening. I wouldn’t have felt so alone.”
“For two years I was making art by myself — I felt alone the whole time,” says Hughes, who is now studying for a master’s degree in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. “It’s inspiring to be with a group of other vets who have had experiences similar to mine. We can find a way to talk about it, to share it.”
“It’s humbling work,” says Cameron during a recent conversation. Since launching the project 17 months ago, he’s seen his art become less angry, less frustrated. “But I don’t think there’s such a thing as letting go,” he says. “You can’t move on. It’s more like moving in. It’s this idea of reconciliation. You’re reclaiming. You’re owning. It’s no longer something you were in service to. Now it’s something you own. It’s yours.”
To find out more about the Combat Paper Project, visit combatpaper.org, or check out iraqpaperscissors.com to view the trailer for a documentary-in-progress on the veterans’ work. Julia Rappaport can be reached at julia.rappaport@gmail.com.
