Tattoos are the narrative art of the 20th century. Much like the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt and the Flemish tapestries of the middle ages, tattoos form a symbolic history of our time. While not all tattoos have historical or narrative significance, non-representational, mainstream art has moved away from storytelling and has been replaced by photography, photojournalism and video as the primary media of historical content. Tattooing has thus become the human, non-technological visual medium for telling stories and recording history.

Who are the people who defend us from harm?

Politicians and media speak of deployments of 50,000 or 100,000

men, a number most of us cannot comprehend.

Just a huge mass of faceless robots.

Consider, each of these "robots" has a mother, a father, a wife or husband,

boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, uncles, cousins

and children, and suddenly, that number has grown exponentially,

which means, as you pass through your life and look around,

someone you see is intimately related to someone who is risking their life

to protect your freedom.

They're not strangers, they are us.