Dear backers, the exhibition is arranged and the book is printed! I hope to see you all at the book launch on Friday the 21st of October at 1.30 PM. Cordially invited!

Press release in English can be read here: http://museumdefundatie.nl/en/claire-felicie/

Dear backers, I'm very happy to announce an upcoming exhibition and book presentation at the beautiful museum De Fundatie in Zwolle. Photos from Only The Sky Remains Untouched will be on show from October 1/2016 till January 15/2017. The book launch party is set on the 21st of October. I hope we will meet up in Zwolle on the 21st to celebrate this event together! An invitation by email will follow soon!

Dear backers, we did it!! I feel blessed and very happy that we have achieved our goal! Next step will be to actually publish this beautiful book and arrange an exhibition with the photos... If you want to keep track on the coming events, please like my Facebook page and follow me on Twitter. Or..write me an email ([email protected]), and I put you on my mailinglist. Hope to see you all at the book launch in (most likely) October. God willing! With lots of love, Claire

I feel overwhelmed..With 38 hours to go, you've brought together an impressive amount of 6370 euros! Only 130 euros left! Thank you all so much!! I trust we can collect those last euros as well.

Meet Armand, who served in Lebanon in 1979-80

"And there stood I - the complete anti hero
And there stood I - brilliantly alone"

'Powerlessness': to Armand this definition describes his deployment most
efficiently. Other competent word would be: Frustration.
To want to do more but not allowed to by mandate. He will always remember a
deadly attack on his mates while on a nightly armed foot patrol, and till
this day he feels very bad not having been able to prevent this tragic
event.

When I asked Armand what his favorite song was during his deployment he
says:
"We had to go on armed foot patrols during the day and during the night.
During the day it wasn't much of a problem. We called these: social patrols,
or 'Shai' patrols, because of the meetings with the locals who were very
friendly and often offered us a cup of tea. However, at night the patrols in
hostile area were grim and scary: we could be shot at from every corner;
even from the same people who had offered us a tea during the day. When we
finally arrived at our base camp after again such night patrols, all dirty
and tired, we were often still full of adrenaline. One of the things you
could do than to get some kind of comfort, was listening to music through
your headphones. And this song really kicked in: Beirut by Peter Sarstedt. I
felt a real connection to it: it expressed my feelings and thoughts at the
time very accurate.

"Crumbling stone by stone".

Meet Rob, who served in Cambodia in 1992 and in Bosnia in 1995.
One of the most compelling documentaries about soldiers and the aftermaths of war is Heddy Honigmann’s ‘Crazy’ (The Netherlands, 1999). In this film she asks soldiers about their favorite song during their deployment in a warzone. While the camera is on their faces, the music is to be heard.

When I asked the same question to Rob, he came with this same song ‘Crazy’ by Seal, while he added: “Take a look at the clip on Youtube with images of the Bosnian war. I must warn you: they might be very disturbing”. And yes, these images are indeed very disturbing. They make also clear what all the people involved in this crazy war had to endure. “The horror..the horror” to say it with Kolonel Kurtz’s words in Coppola’s iconic film on the Vietnam war: Apocalypse now.

With one week ahead of us and thanks to you my dear backers, we have reached 78% of our target. We are almost there! This last week will be an exciting one: will we reach our final goal? I say: YES WE CAN! We can make it happen, if we keep on spreading the word and sharing the project. Remember: 25 euros for such a beautiful photo book in such a special design, is a very sympathetic price! We are looking for 57 more people to join in. That means: if each of you, dear backer, can find 1 more person to buy the book beforehand .. than we have achieved our target and even more :-)

Meet Rick, who served in Lebanon in 1979-80. He explains the impressive tattoo on his back: “First there is the yoke on my shoulders: my deployment and the associated memories were a burden very hard to carry. I had almost hit rock bottom when I came across a photo of my mate Eric (who is also in the photo book) in a local newspaper carrying the DIG” (‘Draag Insigne Gewonden’- the Purple Heart is the American equivalent) Encouraged by seeing this photo Rick went to see the family doctor who now understood his buildup list of complaints and anxieties better. The doctor diagnosed him with PTSD. Rick went out for help for his mental problems, as for this badge, which resulted in receiving the decoration in 2008. On the DIG badge is written: Vulneratis Nec Victus (which means: wounded but not defeated) “On my back, these words are attached to the yoke. Both words and yoke are an homage to the past as well as to the present. Instead of the words of the ten commandments on the two biblical stones on my back, there’s a song text by the Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms, which is the song that meant the most to me after my homecoming from my deployment in Lebanon. This song expresses the feeling of being a soldier at its best. For me, this tattoo means both therapy and heeling: the pain I had to endure reminded me in a way of the pain from the past. It shows that I will carry my war experiences with me all my life. At the same time, war is behind me, literally. I focus on the future. The tattoo gives me a great deal of inner peace and acceptance.”

Dear backers, we're still going strong! With 12 days left, we've reached 66% of our final goal. Please keep spreading the word! Thank you!

Meet Dominique: a Signal and Communication specialist during his tour of duties in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2009. Dominique served also back in 2003, in Bosnia-Sarajevo. When Dominique was in Uruzgan, he had to build up a radio post at Camp Machal in the notorious Chora Valley. He stayed there for three weeks whereby most of the time a handful of Pringle chips was what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His unit couldn’t reach him for food and water supplies. Fortunately for him, there was a platoon of eight Australians who shared some of their food and water with him. Nevertheless, he suffered intensely from hunger and thirst. When he was finally picked up by a platoon of the Airmobile Brigade and was brought to his base camp: Camp Mirwais in Chora, he had lost 40 pounds and was immediately put on a drip not to dry out completely.

Thanks to you my dear backers, we have reached 56% of our final goal after 23 days: that’s really great! A special thanks goes to the Marines’ Business Club who’ve made a donation for a reading. I’m looking forward to this event very much! But we still have 44 % ahead of us, so please keep up the good work: keep on sharing the project with as much people you can. Thank you very much!

Sometimes people ask me where my interest in soldiers and war comes from. Apart from coming from a family with a long history of military service, this interest grew even bigger because of my acquaintance with a guy who is now my husband for almost 30 years. His father, a former soldier of The Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL), got captured by the Japanese during WWII and was forced to labor on the Burma Railway. He suffered from nightmares and sudden aggressive outbursts. I was a little afraid of him because of this unpredictability. Once in a while he did make some remarks about his experiences, but they were so horrible that no one knew how to answer.
He sometimes left his family and went away for days. Whereto exactly nobody knew. An in depth conversation with his family about his experiences never took place. It was common not to share your traumatic experiences with anyone; only perhaps, with your comrades. He died in the early eighties at the age of 67. Rest in peace, father of my beloved husband and grandfather of my beloved children!

The man on the right is my departed father in law. In this picture, he is about in his early twenties.

Meet Frank: only 19 years old when he served as a medic in Lebanon. He has a similar story of neglect as Eric. When he arrived in Lebanon, it was not clear at which combat post he was to stay and work. For three months he received no salary and no tropical uniform. When his mother phoned with the Ministry of Defense to find out what was going on; why Frank didn’t receive any salary and didn’t have a tropical outfit, they said to her: “To be getting paid or to get a proper outfit you need to be deployed.” His mother answered: “I receive letters from Frank from Lebanon for 3 months now. So what do you think he’s doing in a warzone?”

Dear early backers! We are nearly one week on our way and we have already reached 18% of the total goal. So that's really really good! Thank you so much for your early support! In the coming weeks I will keep on posting some photos from the veterans of the book with little background stories. Hope you appreciate that!

To illustrate the idea of the 'Going on a field trip' which was a widespread public perception of the Lebanon-UNIFIL mission among the Dutch civilians at the time, a band named 'Bots' made this song (in Dutch) in 1979 with some cynical lines as: "We are on our way to Lebanon, with sun oil and a cannon."

The situation at hand was often unclear and obscure to all the participants during the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. For example: these photos show Dutch soldiers in the Beeka Valley in 1982 (send to me by Frank- thank you Frank!). Although these photos prove otherwise, the Dutch government denied their troops to have ever been in the Beeka Valley in Lebanon until the year 2000.

In the following weeks I will introduce to you the brave veterans who participated in the book. Meet Eric: he served as a medic in Lebanon in 1979. And although his deployment was for 6 months, he was 'forgotten' by his superiors. He stayed for 4 months more. Together we joked about it: "Eric was not 'Gone but not forgotten' as they put it, but the other way around: 'He was forgotten, but not gone' "