The Kiss
The murals popped-up probably ten or twelve years ago and just like the scenes depicted in them, for Foodland’s (now Shur-Save’s) customers it was like a bomb had dropped in the parking lot. Seemingly overnight, the nondescript backside of the windowless cinderblock Bloomfield V.F.W. was suddenly transformed into an electric war fantasy where a battleship caricature drifts next to haggard Vietnam G.I.s, a chopper hovers in air support. World War I-style trench warfare plays out next to a rendering of the famous photo of the V-J Day Times Square kiss. An evil black stealth bomber soars overhead.
The single large mural covers two sides of the building and features a collection of the most iconic images from each of the last century’s big wars (Korea and Kuwait don’t seem to have made the cut). The scenes are all John Wayne glory without any of suffering, tragedy, or boredom that the actual veterans inside the post must have experienced. I suppose that’s to be expected, and yet things can’t have been all that great for every V.F.W. member.
I don’t know when or why the Bloomfield V.F.W. closed, but now that time has passed and the murals have faded and physical structures decayed, they’ve lost at least some of their gun-toting braggadocio and taken on a new air of sadness and absurdity.
Why is the Times Square couple in front of a wall of breaking waves? Many of the wave crests are literally breaking as the four-foot retaining wall deteriorates under them. Why does the battleship have hundred-yard-long cannons? (Ladies: don’t answer that one.) And why is there a flag-colored curtain exposing the scene as if it is a literal theater of war?
The Vietnam section suffered either a most inept act of vandalism or an unfortunate spill from someone working on the roof. The gas mask-wearing warrior looks out from a trench immediately behind more crashing waves.
I don’t know what will become of the former V.F.W. or its murals and for once I don’t even have a rooting interest either way. Godspeed.
It’s not the size of your cannon…
“The Shit”: ‘Nam
Beach/trench warfare
Pittsburgh Orbit 
For your information, the battleship New Jersey (62) served in the Korean War; Kuwait had yet to occur when the mural was painted. The hundreds of conflicts the US has encountered would take more mural space than you can fathom. Get educated and informed and fact check before you write subjective essays that lacks potent or skilful rhetoric.
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Furthermore, your opinion of the artistic style and design is reminiscent of those who criticized Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollock, or Basquiat. What you do not understand, what you do not appreciate, what you do not have sentience for–you criticize. Godspeed. Godspeed.
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Mark, Thank you for your thoughts.
I think if you actually read the piece, there’s very little criticism of the murals as artwork–it’s more having a little bit of fun with the absurdity of an over-the-top crumbling war fantasy, now deep into unmaintained decay, that faces out to a grocery store parking lot. That, and the fact that the true veterans of foreign wars–those very namesakes of the hall the murals decorate–likely didn’t all have the kinds of heroic conquering glory that the paintings portray.
That said, please tell us more about how the painter of the Bloomfield VFW murals compares to Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollock, or Basquiat–I’ll admit that my little brain is not quite able to put them in the same ranks.
Lastly, if you have a different take than this piece–and I’ll bet you do!–I encourage you to author your own appreciation of the murals–I’d love to read it.
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