/>From Neal
Rubin’s article for The Detroit News (via the amazing, and absolutely
fascinating, Heidelberg Project):
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“The t55 sits outside Kirkuk, an Arab city before the war, at the
entrance you’d use if you were driving from Suleymania, a Kurdish city…
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The sergeant, who didn’t have permission to be quoted by name, said a
pack of what looked to be 10- to 16-year-olds “were having a great time and were
so proud. They waved at everyone who passed and had paint on everything.”
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He assumed adults were in charge, but he didn’t notice any. What he did
see was an explosion of color from the treads to the dome-shaped turret.
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On the front of the tank, beneath the barrel of the 100mm main gun, half
a dozen smiling people hold hands in a field of flowers. There’s a purple wheel
near the right front and a yellow one in back.

Pinks and blues cover
the base of the turret. Flowers swirl up the barrel and more flowers dot the
pavement. What you’d think of as a fender, if you weren’t looking at a tank, has
pale blue hearts and a sort of white shamrock against a field of orange.
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It looks like it was painted by children with no training and no plan.
It looks fabulous.

To Gattorn, it’s a reminder that “so much life
and hope comes from the simple things people do in the face of death.” ...
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The tank was a particularly nice jolt. Gattorn took it as a sign that
brighter days are coming for Iraq, and a reminder that art can be the perfect
weapon for defiance.

Splashed across a t55, “it’s a way of mocking
violence,” he says, a declaration that things like faith and enthusiasm will
always survive. Tanks stall and buildings fall, but art—unarmed and
overmatched—“is there to protect us.”