Sitting alone on watch duty in a foreign country, scanning the dark landscape and wondering what lies beyond the floodlights piercing the night sky gives a person plenty of time to sit and think.
For Springfield resident Tim Heath, a three-year peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and nightly guard duty inspired him to pick up his sketchbook and try to recreate what he saw, both for his own memories and to bring to life the stories he'd tell when he returned home.
"I joined the Army in 1996 and spent a year in Bosnia," said Heath, who had been a Chinese linguist and now works for a consulting firm in Reston.
Art had always been a hobby. Heath was an artist for the Annandale High School and The College of William & Mary newspapers. Inspired by the Bosnian countryside, he carried his sketchbook with him in 1997, while he was stationed at Camp Doval in Bosnia.
Six of the more than two notebooks' worth of sketches Heath completed while serving in Bosnia were recently accepted for inclusion in the U.S. Army museum at Fort Belvoir, and will be part of a rotating exhibit until the museum is constructed.
"We couldn't leave the base so there wasn't a lot to do," said Heath, of extensive collection. "The drawings are all of life as a soldier. It's tedious work, being a peacekeeper."
THE CIVIL WAR in Bosnia had ended by the time Heath and his fellow soldiers arrived, but "entire villages were still abandoned," he said. "Sarajevo had a lot of damage. There was still a lot of bitterness in the people, but they all seemed to like American soldiers."
While serving in Bosnia, Heath worked as a combat engineer, spending anywhere from eight to 12 hours on a watch shift, helping with goodwill efforts or supervising the removal of land mines from fields.
"We helped rebuild roads and culverts to get people moving again," he said. "The main method of transportation was horse and wagon, but a lot of people just rode their horses around. It was like going back to the 1900s."
Heath's drawings, mostly in black and white with varying shades of gray for shadowing, fail to capture the colorful landscape, which was filled with lots of reds and browns and purples.
When Health wasn't on duty, he spent a lot of time in a trailer his unit used as a game room, with a ping-pong table, television and a pool table. They also had access to a tent with exercise equipment. "But we didn't have a lot of ways to spend our free time," he said.
In the nine months Heath served in Bosnia, the roads were often muddy. "One buddy of mine sank in a mud puddle up to his knee, and when he pulled his leg out his boot was missing," he said.
If mud wasn't a problem, cold temperatures at night proved yet another obstacle.
"We all slept in sleeping bags inside tents, with eight to 10 guys in each tent," Heath said. The soldiers were not allowed to keep their kerosene heaters on during the night, but many times someone would wake up in the night to turn the heater back on if it had been shut off, he said.
DRAWINGS FROM Heath's sketchbook were used in a company yearbook after returning from Camp Doval. "I did this so I could remember what it was like, being there," he said.
When Heath returned home to Springfield, he contacted the Army about donating some of his drawings to the museum. He learned that not much art existed from the time U.S. soldiers were in Bosnia.
"The Army is building a museum in Fort Belvoir, which may be completed by 2008," Heath said. In the meantime, the six drawings he donated will be part of a rotating exhibit that will be on display in various government offices both within the U.S. and overseas.
"I felt the pictures would get more of an audience in the museum than sitting on a bookcase in my apartment," Heath said. "This is a real treasure. I was almost reluctant to give up some of my drawings, but if they get hung up somewhere I'll be really proud."
Despite not meeting him until after his service in Bosnia, Heath's fiancée, Karen Harner, said she understands his artwork from that time is "very personal" to him.
"He thought he could display what life was like in the trenches for soldiers there, which is a different perspective than someone who served overseas during a conflict," Harner said.
About a year passed from when Heath first contacted the Army about his drawings and learning they had been accepted, she said. "When he found out, he sent me an e-mail that was filled with exclamation points. He's very excited about this," said Harner, with a laugh.
The donation of the pictures, combined with his memories from serving in Bosnia, have made Heath more patriotic than he already was, coming from a military family.
"People in the military often feel indebted to those who served before them, and this is his chance to show what it was like for people who haven't served," she said.
Heath's drawings will provide a legacy that "one day, we can take our grandchildren and show them what grandpa did" by visiting a museum, Harner said.
As Heath grew up, his artistic abilities have "evolved," said his brother, Kevin Heath.
"He has been a teacher, activist, soldier, student of history, philosophy, religion and culture as well [had] as countless other roles and outlooks throughout the years," Kevin Heath said. "In many ways, his art reflects these many different perspectives of life and the different interests he has had."
His brother focuses more on capturing the essence of his surroundings or the subject of a drawing more than the visible details, Kevin Heath said, which allows each image to tell a deep story.
"One of Tim's most impressive attributes as an artist
is his attempt to express depth in whatever subject he
is presenting," Kevin Heath said.
Their family is "incredibly proud" of Tim Heath, not only for his service but for the submission of his art to the Army museum.
"You cannot get more proud of a soldier than that," Kevin Heath said of his brother.
Until the Army museum is built, the drawings will be catalogued, digitized and put into storage, said Renee Klish, a curator for the Army at Fort Belvoir who has been working with Heath and his submissions.