In June, Popp Martin Student Union installed “Sketching the Drawdown” by war-time illustrator and former Marine Rob Bates ’15 to its permanent art on display.
The unique pieces in this collection depict the Afghanistan War in 2012 through sketches by Bates.
“Our newest art collection by a UNC Charlotte alumnus depicts a military service person's experience overseas, which is also a direct connection to the founding of this University as a college for veterans,” said Morgan Meehan, Director for Popp Martin Student Union and Cone University Center. “Art is a critical component of any community and is meant to be expressive and facilitate dialogue and reflection; we hope this collection's installation in the Student Union provides an opportunity for that for our campus community.”
Union visitors can view Bates’ sketches on display on the building’s second floor.
During his Fall 2012 semester at UNC Charlotte, Bates, an illustration and art education student with a minor in art history, found himself heading back to a war he knew all too well. This time, he was traveling abroad as a freelance war artist.
With the cost of his passport, Afghan visa, medical coverage, airfare, art supplies and cold weather gear funded by an online fundraising campaign, Bates was accredited to travel and report the war on behalf of American Public Media’s “The Story with Dick Gordon,” a nationally syndicated radio show based out of Chapel Hill.
Later that November, he received orders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to embed with Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion 9th Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan and, on December 5, 2012, Bates was on a plane.
He coined the trip “Sketching the Drawdown.”
While he no longer shouldered a rifle, Bates armed himself with a tape recorder, camera, pencil and sketchpad. He spent two weeks as an official member of the press photographing, sketching and interviewing U.S. Marines, contractors and Afghan interpreters in their natural state.
For Bates, it was important to record the drawdown in a war that most Americans had assumed ended years ago. He’d seen the beginning, middle and now the end of the Afghan war, and he wanted the American people to remain conscious of the sacrifices that were being made to rebuild a struggling and divided war-torn nation.
Bates donated the artwork from his 2012 trip to Afghanistan to the Student Union and to the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
With eight years of service in the Marine Corps infantry, Bates’ combat art career began in 2008 when he was an infantry fire team leader with India Company, 3rd Battalion 8th Marines in Helmand and Farah Provinces, Afghanistan. While assuming an active leadership role, Cpl. Bates sketched the daily nuances of war. His raw, authentic pen drawings from this time are depictions of Marines at rest, on post, enemy prisoners in captivity, and even rotary air strikes against Taliban positions. The artwork from his 2008 deployment is on display at The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.
Bates deployed three times while on active duty: once to East Asia and twice to Afghanistan. He is currently a full time curriculum developer and textbook illustrator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee, Florida.