back next 3 drawings: Charged Image, Industrial Design, Throwaway World © 1990 Tom Ferguson
Still have these drawings - all 30 x 22" charcoal, oil pastel or pencil on rives paper.
In Vietnam we carried these things around, seemed harmless until James Pearson got off a
truck, pulled his harness off the truck behind him and... well the
grenade had come loose and was hanging from it's pin. Pulling
the harness separated the two. The live grenade now went rolling into the crowded truck. A pfc reacted by kicking it out and
yelling, "grenade!" Everyone hit the ground except Pearson who stood looking at the grenade, frozen. He was killed of course.
PFC Merriweather was wounded in the neck and airlifted out. I checked the Wall in D.C. and he wasn't listed but Pearson
was. He was the first so the Company Commander named the field where we were encamped, Pearson Field. Soon there were not
enough fields for such sentiments.
