Suicide rates are alarmingly high among our Veteran community and we, like other families can name too many whom we have lost.

Suicide is a complex issue – often associated with severe injury, anxiety, hopelessness or depression - a sense of a loss of value, belonging, or identity.

This painting is a synthesis of visual and written art from the American experience.

Scratched into the background of the painting is a portion of the Walt Whitman painting, O Me! O Life! and its message of self-affirmation - to view one’s existence as purpose enough, and to value one’s contribution of self as reason enough, to continue. Whitman’s writing reflected a tumultuous period of political, technological, and societal change in late 19th Century America.

The anxiety and friction of Whitman’s America resonate with our experience today, a time in which we might find our sense of self shaken and uncertain. It is the work of the painting to stir up in the viewer, the aspiration that the boots stand at the ready - with an enduring, intrinsic sense of relevance and possibility. The painting carries forward Whitman’s encouragement, and the viewer is valued with having the presence and the agency to continue participating.

Veterans Day is a call to check in with friends, family, and Teammates - Veterans and non-Veterans alike.

The full poem follows; the final four lines in bold are represented in the painting.

O Me! O Life!

Walt Whitman
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.