"Green on Blue" began with a question. I asked US soldiers in Afghanistan,"What are you bringing back from the war?" They mostly said, "Nothing. Maybe some photos."

This answer pained me. After 12 years and $600 billion dollars, should we have more to show for our efforts? Shouldn’t we have learned more? Experienced more? Be safer?

So I worked with these men to export otherwise-useless stones from Afghanistan to NYC. I wanted to show that we can work together. Collaboration and cooperation can overcome 6,000 miles and a crazy patchwork of shipping options.

The objects are physical manifestations of the void created by war. Are the stones empty symbols? Or are they potent.

This man is holding a rock now in NYC. It’s from the ground where his house stood before American forces destroyed it. He’s angry and confused, but so are Americans. Yet he posed for the picture and let a man bring this rock to NYC.

I lived in NYC during 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan is important to me. I was a supporter of the war. I hated the Taliban and wanted to destroy it. Unfortunately it is never that easy. War is brutal and uncontrollable.