Well, Colonel, first of all, just what is the premise, the purpose of the Portraits of Courage exhibit?

Yeah, so great question.

So when President Bush was leaving public office, um he knew he wasn't gonna get it he was unemployable basically he wasn't gonna go to walmart or stock shelves at home depot and laura also said george you need to take up a hobby or i'm going to kill you so he decided to take up painting and he had recently read uh winston churchill's books one of his books where he talked about painting and the cathartic uh healing that he had from you know just all the stress of being the prime minister during world war ii um for great britain And so he decided, what the heck, I'll take up painting.

So he trained with three different artists and art professors at Texas universities, and they taught him how to paint.

And then once he graduated beyond fruit and bowls of fruit and landscapes, he decided to start working on people.

And one of the instructors said, you should really paint portraits of people that only you are intimately familiar with, faces of the unknown.

So he decided to paint men and women that he got to know who all had served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the World War on Terror.

Colonel, tell me about Melissa Stockwell.