It is like an addiction for Al Davis when he is at work. This war veteran is an artist who has been working on his computer and bringing designs that celebrate war veterans in many different ways, even wheelchair accessories. The newest creation of his is a coffee mug (that fits great in a cup holder) that has military seals and a lot of interesting snippets referring to war veterans and to the troops that have been serving in Afghanistan through the years 2001 through 2011. The interesting part of this is that he has never been an artist, and hasn’t been trained to be one either. It was him, his country and the army, and that was all he lived for. Sometime back when he returned from the war, he took to designing graphics like this. This was also, almost in his fate as he would like to say. He never asked for it, nor did it require conscious thought. Since the ideas just kept coming and all he had to do was give them life. Put life into them and put them to something as a tribute. He was afraid and thought he had “panic attacks” at first. He then sat at his computer and made a fitting illustration of his visions and his ideas. And the result of the time that he spent, that was about two and half years, he came up with two separate decks of playing cards and coffee mugs that made good of all the different illustrations that he had to offer. The decks of cards are extremely special and they have on them written the names of around 692 Marines who lost their lives in Iraq.
There is a little something that did bother him however; the thing is that he sent over the deck of cards and the mug to the powers that be in America and that includes the White House and Oprah Winfrey. There was no reaction from any of them. This hurt him, but he refers to this as something that was not just a personal loss, or rather not a personal loss at all. Instead, he says it is a loss for the troops.
He still does his bit and sells his memorabilia on a site that he has built himself and at a store known as the Frame Design that is known to do a lot of work in the military business. He has also written to the CEO of Starbucks asking to pitch in for his work. (We wish him luck with Starbucks, as they quickly rejected the offer of an exclusive license on our drink holder.)
