When my last book went to press, I got antsy looking for something to do. Having been working, taking photos for it for nearly two years, the prospect of sitting at home and doing nothing horrified me.

While working on that book, I'd met a WWII vet who showed me a tattoo he'd gotten in Europe and I realized that nobody was recording these and we were rapidly loosing part of our history. Paul Kennedy, my editor at Krause was quick to make me realize that if I was going to write about vet's tattoos, I should include all vets.

During the Iraq war I'd seen a lot of lip service paid to the men and women we're asking to risk their lives overseas and I wanted to do something concrete to draw attention to their sacrifices. It's easy to put a yellow magnet on your car, but when people are being asked to fight and die and be away from their families for years on end, I think grander measures are called for.