Setting Up a Patrol Base, Nawa District
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael D. Fay, USMCR (Ret)
Acquisition Number: 2013.52.30
Medium: Acrylic and Water-based Oils on Canvas

Members of Company E, 3d Battalion, 3d Marine Regiment, are laying out a new patrol base in the Nawa-l-Barakzayi District of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, during May 2010. The base will stand on higher more arid ground on the west bank of the Helmand River. The Marine in the foreground is carrying a coil of barbed wire, while others install the first of many “HESCO barriers” by hand, creating explosives-resilient walls. The artist recalls a landscape of gently undulating stony fields, unused for many generations. The region was a Taliban stronghold when U.S. Marines were sent there as part of Operation Strike of the Sword in the summer of 2009. Marines were first deployed to Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks in 2001.