I'm Q, an American, a proud citizen of the United States of America, an amateur photographer and novice web designer who has taken on a task to remind people of our heroes, of our veterans, of our women and men serving honorably in the United States Military, and of our heroes that have paid the ultimate price for your freedom!!
I started my initial project in May of 2000 with my Vietnam website dedicated to to a group of Marines that served in Vietnam. I have located and reunited many of them. While at a reunion in D.C. I received an award from them. This tribute site has over 3,000 Images and over 2,000 pages.
12/30/00 "FROM WHAT I GOT FROM YOUR WEB SITE Q IS THAT I'AM VERY PROUD TO BE AND SERVE IN OUR MARINE CORP AND WHEN I LOOK AT OLD GLORY I ALWAYS REMBER THE MARINES THAT FOUGHT FOR HER THAT IS WAY I'LL LOVE HER AND FOR WHAT SHE STANDS FOR THANK YOU Q FOR THE HISTORY"
12/25/00 "I just spent an hour looking at your site. The pictures brought back quite a few memories. You have an outstanding site. It is truthful and presents war as it really was. Great job. Shows a whole lot of dedication to the brothers of Delta 1/5...Semper Fidelis Bro. Boondocker, aka-Rich" Read more comment by visiting this old guest book .
On March 17, 2003 I started web preparations for the upcoming war in Iraq/Afghanistan. I have since dedicated the majority of my time and resources to preserving the memories of our heroes that served in Iraq or Afghanistan and have deceased. I started a website to honor these heroes and to help people remember who they are. Little did I know what kind of commitment to do this I was facing.
A couple months later in 2003, I was approached by a friend that worked at a funeral home, asking if I would take some photos for a mother of a hero killed in Iraq. I said I was honored to and only armed with a Sony Mavica floppy drive camera and about 200 floppy disk in a bag, I shot my first service for one of our heroes. Cpl Travis Bradach-Nall . The big B/W photo was posted at the request of the mother.
It was later, after I handed off the photos that I realized I was doing something good to show my thanks for their sacrafice. It took a long time to get everything together, to learn about DoD releases to use them to track and figure out who to contact etc. Since then I've been on over 200 missions for the families of our heroes. I travel as far north as the Canadian border and as far south as San Bruno CA and as far east as Boise Idaho area.
I've worn out the Sony Mavica, 2 Kodak cameras, a Minolta Dimage 7 and 3 Nikon cameras. It wasn't really till late 2006 when I started to beg people for help. I have gotten way over my head and still at it.
Along with tracking our heroes and adding them to the website, for each name I added at least 1 page. All done by me manually. I also started to track AP headers which I still do to this date and logged many stories from the early part of the war. I continued the headers but stopped adding stories, it was just too much work. As of 01/28/08 I have logged 1775 days. Visit www.031903.org . There are over 7000 pages here.
Someone tells me there is no tribute site for the folks that died in Panama, so I responded with www.OperationJustCause.org . There are other projects, just visit www.OurWarHeroes.net .
So, not to drag this profile too much longer, over 70,000 Miles traveled, Over 85,000 photos I shot prepped for the families, over 46,500 photos posted from various sources, and over 28,000 pages created later.... I'm still at it.
I also helped build the first memorial, the Afghan/Iraq War Memorial located in Salem Oregon next to the VA building. Assisted with 9/11 Healing Fields . Numerous Home Comings for our troops and individual military members returning home. Mailed out over 5,000 postcards and handed out over 10,000 business cards, both with my simple 2 lines: Don't Let The Memory Of them Drift Away www.IraqWarHeroes.org .
I no longer have a personal life, so if I seem impersonal... forgive me because my head is probably someplace else. I wear darker prescription glasses so I can see and have a few less light induced migraines. I lost a part of me to cancer a few years ago and don't know how the leftover stuff is doing. My views on Politics, Pro Sports and Religions is not mainstream. I'm a Cipher.