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| 25 - In the Shadow of the Opium Harvest |
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael D. Fay, USMCR (Ret)
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Acquisition Number: 2013.52.29
Medium: Acrylic and Water-based Oils on Canvas
Throughout the long war in Afghanistan (2001-21), Coalition troops of all flags went to war with their military working dogs by their sides. They detected explosives, tracked enemy combatants, found illegal drugs, and searched for the missing. Lance Corporal Andrew Mulherran and his tracking dog Boone take a break during a patrol pause outside of Forward Operating Base Geronimo in 2010. Around them are freshly harvested opium poppy fields; they rest under the shade of trees and beside piles of dried sheaves of poppies. 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, established the base in 2009 as part of the Marine Corps’ operations against the Taliban in Helmand Province. According to the artist, over the coming months, the Marines of Weapons Company, 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, would be battling “the fruits of the poppy harvest” in the form of newly purchased rocket-propelled grenades and 102mm Chinese rockets in the hands of the enemy. Boone retired in 2015 and was reunited with Sergeant Mulherran.
A native of Pennsylvania, Mike Fay first enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1975 and left to pursue a BS in art education at Pennsylvania State University in 1978. He reenlisted in 1983 and served for a decade as an avionics technician and recruiter. Fay joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 2000 and became a full-time combat artist, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Fay retired in 2009. His MFA in illustration was earned from the University of Hartford in 2012, and Fay continues to create and teach others the power of art. He founded the Joe Bonham Project, whose artists capture the resilience and recovery of wounded warriors.
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