URBANA, Ill. — For Caleb Carlson, his tattoos remind him to keep balance in his life. For Brandi Binder, they remind her of what she lost. And for Brent Blackwell, his largest tattoo, a skeleton, reminds him that everyone must die, so “do what you enjoy.”
Tattoos are becoming more of a cultural norm these days, but the body art has long been a norm in the military. That’s why it occurred to Nicholas Osborne, director of the UI’s Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education, that featuring some University of Illinois student veterans and their tattoos in a display would be a great medium for storytelling.
“Stories that (veterans) would not necessarily share in words but will commemorate on their bodies,” said Osborne, who’s a veteran with tattoos.
Several UI student veterans agreed to share their tattoos and the stories behind them for the display at the UI’s Main Library that ran through November:
Binder joined the National Guard at 17 after her junior year of high school, because she wanted to become the first in her family with a college degree but couldn’t pay for it. After graduating from high school, she immediately left for basic training.
“I loved it so much,” said Binder, who put off college and worked full time at Lincoln’s Challenge Academy while serving in the Guard. Her first overseas deployment was in Iraq in 2006, where she had various jobs in a military prison. She came home in October 2007, but she and three fellow guardsmen found it hard to be home and decided to go back. They left for Afghanistan less than a year later. Binder was stationed at Camp Phoenix near Kabul, and soon after, one of her three friends was killed.
The dog tags in the large tattoo that trails down her spine are her friend’s, and the Phoenix symbolizes her time at Camp Phoenix, were she “lost a lot and gained a lot.” She got both when she returned from her second deployment. The Japanese Kanji symbols— which stand for “true love, soulmate, mother and soldier”— were her first tattoo, which she got along with her husband just before her first deployment.
