ON VETERANS DAY, most people pause to appreciate those who have served in the military. For Mike Reagan of Edmonds, Washington, every day feels like Veterans Day.
Reagan devotes his life to helping families of fallen soldiers heal. He creates a hand-drawn portrait to help loved ones remember a service member who died defending our country. He calls it the Fallen Heroes Project.
Reagan fought in the Vietnam War and feels lucky to have survived. "I came home from Vietnam and was always curious why I lived and others didn't," he told TFK. "I realize now that I was meant to do this," he says.
In 2004, a woman asked Reagan to draw her husband, a soldier who was killed in Iraq. She sent Reagan a photo that had been taken before her husband went to war. "She said the portrait pushed her over the top towards healing," Reagan remembers.
Now, requests for portraits come through letters, phone calls and his website, fallenheroesproject.org. He does about two portraits a day. He does not charge for them. "I've done 461, and 76 more are on the way," he says. "I've committed my life to trying to help these families, to let them know that I care."
Reagan reaches people across the U.S. "My wife, Pat, and I are recipients of Mike's portrait of our son Benjamin, who was killed in Iraq on November 1, 2003," says Joe Colgan. "The families who receive his portraits feel the warmth of his love," he says.
That is just the feeling Reagan hopes his work will bring about. "My fallen heroes are part of my family," he says. "They can't talk for themselves. But I can talk for them."