War Veterans Pour Experiences Into Art

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By MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer

BERKELEY, Calif. - Ehren Tool never fired a gun in the Persian Gulf War (news - web sites). When his Marine buddies went trophy hunting in the trenches, he stayed put, warned by his Vietnam veteran dad not to seek out the naked face of war.

And yet, there are things he can't forget — the danger, the urgency, the revelation that life can be lost between the tick and the tock of a moment.

"I feel like there's this siren all the time, and everybody's just walking along normal, nobody's breaking for the fire exits," he says.

The feeling drives him to slap another lump of clay on his potter's wheel and set it spinning, coaxing the chocolatey brown mass into small cups that appear innocuous at first glance, and then quite disturbing — stamped with bombs, skulls, gas masks and the U.S. Marine Corps insignia.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041208/ap_en_ot/art_of_war

on edit: this article is extremely moving and makes you sit and wonder in amazement at the horrors of war