an illustrated memoir

“Google 'hero book' and you will find links to 'memory work', a practice that began in Africa, notably among mothers living with HIV/AIDS. Keep surfing and you will learn that the 'hero book' is both a document and a process, whereby a child, through guidance, tells the story of their life relative to the conflicts and problems that beset them.

Scott Waters' has taken this format and, using text, photos, and painted image, applied it to time spent in the military. The results are stunning. Waters' prose is matter-of-fact, and stands in contrast to his meticulously painted images, many of them set against that mass-produced, knots-and-all surface known as 'plywood'—an accurate metaphor for what we in the civilian world call 'military training'.

Reading The Hero Book, I am reminded of the similarities between children's skipping songs and military marching cadences. The content differs, but the narrative stays the same.”