Private Noel Ahearne•
Private Noel Ahern
30 x 50 inches, oil on canvas, 2008
I saw this guy amongst others coming back
from an exercise in full combat gear. The individual soldier is the principal
weapon of any army. Here private Ahern is wearing the relatively new Irish
Combat fatigues. I discovered from a soldier that all dispersion patterns, or
camouflage to you and me, are not the same. Each army has a different one, and
before the Irish army got theirs they had to be sure it was different from all
other armies. I asked the soldier would he be happy with the Irish camouflage
in a combat zone. “Yes”, he said, but went on to add, “ But the Austrian
camouflage is brilliant. They could be standing in a bush ten feet from you and
you wouldn’t see them.” “Really,” I said, painting away, “and if you were in a
combat zone and there were forty dead Austrians up the road would you take
their uniforms?” His reply: “I don’t think we’d have managed to kill forty
Austrians.”