08/22/2026
🇺🇸 🪖🎖️New Abraham Hunter original! “Vietnam” is now available $12,850.00! 🎖️🪖🇺🇸
Artist Notes:
It's taken me until recently to feel like I could do justice to this subject and those who were involved in this war and I am very grateful I get to share it on the 250th July 4th. I wanted a better resolution image to show the details but couldn't quite get it today so I made a video I'll share in a bit.
The painting features the aftermath of a vicious firefight in the Vietnam War. At the top left is a Cobra attack helicopter and Loach scout helicopter. They hunted in teams, with the loach being at treetop level and drawing fire for the cobra to swoop down and use its higher firepower. My great uncle, grandma's brother, Fred was killed piloting one of the Loach choppers, along with his door gunner. In the center left of the painting is the radioman has thrown the purple smoke and is signaling for the Medivac Hueys to land. Moving to the Medivac choppers, is a tribute to the Vietnam vet on my grandfather's side of the family who is hanging out of the door of the Medivac. The painting is about the bloody aftermath of a firefight which has resulted in a lot of casualties, so there's two medic choppers and a third accompanying them. Rushing to get someone with a head wound on board as fast as the helicopter lands is a group of four carrying a stretcher. From left to right in the foreground, I gave the GI a hispanic look as a nod to the hispanic door gunner who died with my great uncle. I wanted to include several black soldiers to show my respect to the high causality rates of black soldiers in the conflict. The man giving the field IV has a pack of ci******es in his helmet band and it seems he's been sharing as the guys try to calm their nerves after the action. The hardest part of the painting was the center lower stage. I didn't want to shy away from the reality of the war. The medic applying pressure to the wounded to slow the blood loss is a nod to a medic I watched try unsuccessfully to save a life, and seeing how discouraged he was after... just had to put that feeling into the painting as a tribute to those who tried to save lives in a situation designed to end life. The sergeant gesturing to the captain is my way of including those who went into the conflict early, maybe even before the war when the country was scared during Cold War tensions. Bob Dylan's song "Hard Rains Gonna Fall" was written before the war, used to set the tone in Ken Burns documentary about Vietnam, and the lyrics say "oh where have you been , my blue eyed son? Oh where have you been, my darling young one?". You can see the sergeant has blue eyes so I wanted to give a nod to the blue eyed son in the song since I feel it symbolizes those who went with the best of intentions believing our government. Behind him is the company captain, white knuckle gripping the dog tags of the guys he's just lost. He stares out behind the viewer where the NCO is pointing with a mix of emotions, which I read as trauma anger resentment responsibility and maybe even regret or determination. I added the whir of the rear helicopter rotor over his head to symbolize the higher ups over his head that he has to answer to about what has happened. He is a nod to a captain in a CBS news documentary on a group called Charlie Company that followed the company through the war. The company changed captains during the war, but the first captains character stuck with me when I first saw it as a teenager and I wanted to give that good caption a shout out in my painting. The last character to the far right, with a well used M60 machine gun, is a grunt almost staring off into space. I wanted to tribute all of the men that served and came back with their lives changed forever with a lifetime of traumatic emotions and memories to process. He has taken a wound to his left eye which to me symbolizes his way of seeing the world is forever changed. In the distance behind him is a burning hut. I wanted to pay my respects to the civilians who lived lost in the war. I haven't met one Vietnam vet that doesn't speak about the civilians and the regret of what happened to those poor people. I've heard them say over and over, no one wins in war. As the viewer of the painting, the enemy is somewhere behind and above you. Maybe they've retreated or maybe they're coming. I wanted that sense of discomfort and suspense of not being able to see the enemy and knowing where they are but being vulnerable. That's what most of these guys felt in the field.
I know I've not done complete justice to all in the conflict but I got about as much as I could into one painting. Hopefully I have a whole lot more paintings left in me. -Abraham Hunter
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