Astounding. I'd love to see hi-res ones which were easier to read. Do you have an album somewhere, or even a book?
Thanks for the kind words, Goose. A literary journal called "A Public Space" has published 10 latrine graffiti photos in their current issue (#5). The photos are mostly different than the ones you see here. You can order a copy through their website, I believe, at www.apublicspace.org.
One of the grafitti shown mentions the Romans in Mesopotamia. One of the admitted archaeological deficiencies of Roman military latrines is that they had no stall partitions. However the Roman grafitti that have been found at military sites around the Empire (and on slingstones and similar munitions) suggest that not much has changed. One would give a lot to have found as many grafitti at Dura-Europus or Hadrian's Wall as have been found at Pompeii. (X Fretensis RULES!)
I find it very disturbing to see variations on the Nazi Swastika in the bottom right of the last picture...
I've been told that what appear to be 'variations on the Nazi Swastika' in the last image are, in fact, anarchy symbols and not Swastikas. However, Swastikas were apparent on other walls not shown here.
...and thanks for the info about the Romans, Eric. Very interesting.
The swastika was/is also used extensively in Asia ... well before the Common Era began. So it's not an exclusively Native American symbol.
In my extensive experience drawing and viewing symbols of anarchy, I've only seen images like those when looking at variants of the swastika.
That being said, the swastika has a long history but most of those uses would be classified as archaic, if this sort of thing were collected in a dictionary.
the 3-sided 'swastika' is the white-power glyph. The r/w Afrikaaners use it as their mark.
Re: photo number 9 - do we see the results of military censor's work? Are censors flying to every latrine to do their job?
...a 'white power glyph'... very interesting mr. trail safety. Thanks for the info. I didn't see a lot of those. In fact, if someone wanted to draw a Swastika, they simply just drew one, usually backwards (in one image not shown here, someone drew a backwards swastika and someone else crossed it out and drew one in the correct orientation), but there wasn't much of that king of thing at all. As for censors, that's a good question Leon. I doubt very much that there's a military censor, Sharpie-equipped, going around blacking out words. Why bother when the cleaning crews could do the job much easier. But I did find it interesting that people seemed to take as much time blacking out graffiti as they did writing their own.
My youngest son is at Ali Al Salem. Having been in the Army from 69-71 I worry about him. I wish I was with him so I could protect him. Of course he is now a man and must take care of himself. Young men are filled with bravado and bullshit. That helps them face the horrors and keeps them alive. They will face the terror of what they have done and seen in their dreams. Love and a good women will bring you through. I didn't give a flying ship about anything.——-My wife of 31 years saved my usless ass.
I was stationed at Salem last year and I know the exact "stinch" you are talking about in the bathrooms! The graffiti is still being written and it won't ever stop. The caliber of "soldier" that are getting into the army is sad. Yea it sucks being over there for 15 months or whatever, but they all signed up for it knowing that it was possible. The whole base is disgusting, I honestly don't see how anyone can sit in those bathrooms long enough to write on the walls anyway.
What a great way to depict the war. A great first person account. I would love to see a book made out of this subject. Art Historians would eat this up.
I can see how Graffiti can be looked as art... but when you do it in another country that you do not belong to... i think it's disrespectful. Leave it to its citizens to do the graffiti. Also, if you make a graffiti with your gang sign... you deserve some punishment for it.
can see how Graffiti can be looked as art... but when you do it in another country that you do not belong to... i think it's disrespectful. Leave it to its citizens to do the graffiti. Also, if you make a graffiti with your gang sign... you deserve some punishment for it.
wow, lots of comments since the last time i checked this page. thanks all for commenting. for the people who think this would make a good book, i think so, too, but really, i think there's only a handful of us.
Great article. Super cool photos. Reminds me of the old times :) Thanks for the effort you put in the article.
This is really a wonderful topic to discuss. Graffiti made by steve is a piece work of art :) looking for more good post from you steve. thanks!
I am in the U.S. Navy, I have done three 9 month tours in Kuwait. I was stationed all three times at Ali Al Salem, it is a good place and it could be a very bad place sometimes. The living conditions for perm party is not that bad, three to a POD, you have to walk to showers which is OK and the chow hall is about 50 feet away with alright food, better than MRE's.
I think of the real hero's in Afghanistan and Iraq taking bullets, mortars and IED's, I was very lucky, but my heart is always with the troops in harms way.
The only thing that I detested there was the grafiti, very racist and vulgar. When I first saw it I was shocked, we tried to curb it, but you can't. The Navy even painted over the walls on the customs compound and like a day later there was grafiti again. You can't stop it no matter what you do. I think that the chain-of-command doesn't want it to stop. I suggested that before a unit leaves that we check behind them to see if the grafiti was writen again and if it was we would have them repaint the walls in the latrines, of course that idea got shot down.
@Anonymous - When did you do your tours? The surprising thing to me, as a civilian, was the relative lack of racism and vulgarity I saw in the latrines. Okay, maybe not vulgarity, but it certainly wasn't more vulgar than what you might see at a truck stop in Oklahoma. I guess I expected to see a lot more racism and vulgarity than what I did see. But I don't pretend to know any more than what I saw in the week that I was there in 2007.
I served aboard the U.S.S. America in the Navy as well as in Kuwait and Iraq with the Army and what always surprised me about the graffiti was how witty and thought-provoking the humor and observations could be. It\'s a strange thing to be sitting in a port-a-jon in the middle of the desert and laughing heartily. Yes, it could also be vulgar and racist, but like you mentioned earlier, most of it seemed to be directed toward their lot in life. While there were few enlisted personnel I knew of that held formal degrees, most were highly skilled in defining the world around them, talking trash, and calling a spade a spade.
To all those folks worried about the "nazi like" symbol.
It is a Triskelion. It is the symbol of a peaceful fraternity known as Tau Gamma Phi. Here is the link for those with no Google Fu today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Gamma_Phi
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