Courtesy Photo | This painting, by New Jersey Artist Todd L.W. Doney,commemorates a 2017 rescue mission...... read more read more
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WESTHAMPTON BEACH, New York— The June 4 event at which seven members of the 106th Rescue Wing were recognized for heroism during an April 2017 rescue mission, also marked the public unveiling of a painting commission to commemorate that mission.
The painting incorporates elements that define the April 24, 2017 mission to save the lives of two badly burned sailors on board the freighter Tamar.
The viewer sees figures of pararescue Airmen with fins on jumping out of an open C-130 ramp and drifting down to the lighted ship in the North Atlantic below. Meanwhile a loadmaster, with glowing night vision googles, stares back at the viewer.
Once they landed in the ocean, the New York Air National Guard Airmen climbed aboard the ship, performed emergency surgery on the sailors, and kept them alive for 30 hours until they could be evacuated.
“I think what sticks out most in my mind, is you look at the ship, and you see the guys out there,” said 1st Lt. Jamie Bustamante, the loadmaster in the painting. “I do remember seeing all that.”
“It was great to see this mission memorialized in a painting for the team,” said Lt. Col. Sean Boughal, a combat rescue officer who led the mission.
The idea the painting came from Chief Master Sgt. Brian Mosher, the 106th Operations Group superintendent, said Major Michael O’Hagan, the wing’s public affairs officer.
Mosher thought the mission would be a great National Guard heritage painting. Those are a series of artworks that commemorate National Guard history over the years, O’Hagan said.
O’Hagan went to work to make that happen. He found out, though, that it was unlikely to get a painting made that way.
A 106th rescue in 1979 was already the subject of one of the paintings, and the process can take years, and there was another New York painting in the works, he learned.
Fortunately, O’Hagan has a friend who is a painter: Todd L.W. Doney, a former illustrator, skilled gallery painter, and art professor at County College of Morris, New Jersey.
Doney, who charges up to $15,000 for a canvas, agreed to do the job for materials and time only.
O’Hagan had “Frankensteined together” a proposed painting from photographs. Doney used that as a model.
Doney refined the mock-up. Then members of the aircrew and pararescue team checked it to make sure the details were right.
They made sure the parachute cords were the right color, that there were the proper number of cargo rollers in the doors, and that Bustamante’s uniform was in the Air Force camo pattern and not what the Marines use, O’Hagan said.
The back and forth process was similar to his work as an illustrator, Doney said. He took the clients input and turned it into artwork.
He’s pleased with the painting, Doney said. But what makes this painting special, though, he emphasized, is the mission the artwork captures.
“It wouldn‘t be a great painting unless those guys did what they did,” he said. “It was really awesome to honor these guys who jumped out in the middle of the night to save lives.”
| Date Taken: | 07.26.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2022 13:33 |
| Story ID: | 426020 |
| Location: | WESTHAMPTON BEACH, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 344 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Painting tells the story of Tamar rescue, by Eric Durr, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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