New York artist Steve Mumford originally went to Baghdad in 2003, making four trips in all during that year and the next. Embedded with the U.S. military, he kept a journal and made countless drawings and watercolors of what he saw there. In early 2007 he returned to Iraq, where he worked at an army hospital for approximately a month. During his stay, he documented the heroic efforts of the doctors, nurses and medics to save lives, both U.S. and Iraqi.

"The scenes from the 28 CSH [the 28th Combat Support Hospital] are some of the most moving I've experienced and tried to draw from all my trips to Iraq," says Mumford. "The deaths leave a deep impression, yet it's the soldiers who survive, and the staff who keep these lives from slipping away, that define the day-to-day experience here. But I feel that beneath the cheer in their sharp, young faces is a lingering sadness, an understanding that the scars of the survivors can never be erased. The scars of the hospital staff aren't visible but occasionally the hurt contributes, in their daily actions, to something like a state of grace."

We were pleased to bring you Mumford's story of his first four trips to Iraq in our August issue. You can see his latest drawings and journal entries from the war zone on artnet.com.

Image from artnet.com.