[MUSIC] War isn't like
anything else, and war isn't like it is on TV.
I don't think it's really possible
to communicate, even
just how an event in a war can affect different people.
I make the cups to start
conversations. My name is Ehren Tool.
I'm a veteran of the '91 Gulf War.
I've made and given away more than
21,000 cups since 2001.
[MUSIC]
I joined the Marine Corps in '89,
and I thought I wanted to be a cop to protect and serve.
I went to military police,
graduated top of my class.
We did convoy escorts and enemy prisoner-of-war handling.
One day, there was an older Iraqi officer,
and he was holding his hand at of his shoulders,
his hand at his hip, his head
at his knee, and saying "Baghdad,
Baghdad, Baghdad." 1, 2, 3. "Baghdad, Baghdad."
Eventually, I figured out that he had
three children in Baghdad.
I said that out loud to
the Marine next to me and said, "Oh,
he's got three kids in Baghdad." My buddy said,
"Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, all gone."
That guy dropped like we shot him.
He just crumpled, and he
just sobbed, just uncontrollably sobbed.
At the time I didn't know.
We hadn't moved to Baghdad.
[NOISE] Anyway,
it undermined the argument
of "they hate freedom" or "they hate us."
This guy was just concerned
about his three kids in Baghdad.
[MUSIC] That messed with me, and
I decided I didn't want to be a gunslinger anymore.
I got to the Marine Corps, I took the job.
I went to art school, and I took
a drawing class just as a whim thing.
But that instructor, Ben Sakoguchi,
he was Japanese American,
he said, "All art is political."
That really resonated with me.
Decorating the cups initially,
I started with my own insignia and
then my father's insignia as it went on.
I borrowed other people's insignia and
toys, like the gas mask that
I wore during the '91 Gulf War.
GI Joe made a version of it.
The collection just keeps growing.
All the images mean something to me,
and they're emotional for me.
You can't really be thinking about
too many other things when you're throwing
the stamping, and then you can get lost in
all kinds of crazy conversations in your head.
There are times I cry [LAUGHTER] as I'm making cups.
But I feel like making the cups is
something that I really need to do.
[NOISE] It's a desire to serve.
My father didn't talk to me
about his experience in Vietnam.
My grandfather didn't talk to me about his experience
with World War II until I came back from my war.
It's impossible to communicate,
so it feels easier just not to talk about it at all.
Most of the requests come from vets or their families.
People will just call, e-mail me and ask me to make
a cup for their brother who committed suicide
or their son who's having a hard time.
The real pay off is being able to hand
somebody the cup and have their reaction.
It's a little message in
a bottle that I get to throw out there.
I gave cups to people, and they were crying so bad,
they almost [LAUGHTER] dropped the cup.
Hearing stories afterwards,
like a woman who maybe had
a hard relationship with her father,
I made the cup for them, and
she took the cup back to the father,
and then they had this conversation.
The daughter got a new insight into
her father and what his experience must have been like.
It's priceless, the opportunity
to have these conversations.
I want you to get done messing with it,
I mean, keep messing, and then we'll fix it at the end.
I work in the ceramics lab here at UC Berkeley.
I think that a lot of what's causing
problems in the world is ignorance.
At Berkeley, you get exposed to so many things.
The conversation is here,
all you got to do is listen.
There is something about the Marine Corps that I try to
bring to teaching and try to bring working here,
that we are all in it together
and everybody's perspective is important.
Working at Berkeley has been great for that.
I say I just make cups and part
of that is a self-defense thing,
that I don't want to say that the cups are
these grand and noble things that are changing the world,
and then [LAUGHTER] find out that they're just cups.
So I'd rather just say
their cups, and if they're anything more, that's great.
But if they are anything more, it's not because of me,
it's not because the way they're made,
it's because they resonate with somebody else.
There's still Marines out there in combat and harm's way,
and it's hard for me to ignore that.
I don't believe anything I do
is going to change the world,
but nothing in the world is releasing
me from my obligation to try.
[MUSIC]