Roger Sparks

My name is Roger Sparks. I am a father, husband, artist and pararescueman. My passion for tattooing overtook me in November of 2010 while deployed to Afghanistan. Directly after experiencing a weeklong period of intense combat I was approached by three men about a film project. The three men were famed producer Casey Neistat, photographer/writer David Kuhn and an extremely tallented tattoo artist named Scott Campbell. They were attempting to capture the relationship of combat and tattooing in a documentary format. At first I did not know what to think. There was something deeply sincere about our interaction. I agreed initially thinking the distraction would give us space to digest recent events. We were blood soaked and grief stricken. Casey, David and Scott’s initial motivations were naive in the reality of the terror and death of combat. However, I feel they understood this upon meeting us. They saw this upon looking into our eyes and seeing the lack of innocence and grief. They recognized the reality of what they were looking for. Only in hindsight have I realize we had lost our connection to ourselves and to our humanity. To the men Scott tattooed it became the way forward, the way to pick up the pieces and come back to our selves. I cannot shake the profound impact this had on me. I am indebted to the serendipity of those events. It is my way forward.