"THE GUYS THAT STOOD ON THE WALL":

 A few years after former President George W. Bush took up painting, he began working with Fort Worth-based art teacher Sedrick Huckaby. The teacher, who had seen a series of paintings Bush had done of world leaders, suggested Bush now paint the portraits of people nobody knows.

"It just dawned on me, why not honor these vets?" Bush, 70, said in a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News at the George W. Bush Center. "And not only honor them, but draw attention to what we are doing at the Bush Center, which is how do we get them the best help we can get them?"

Sixty-six portraits and a four panel-mural of 98 service members and veterans will be featured in Bush's new book, Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors, which will be released Tuesday.  [...]

Bush said he used his painting to try to "capture a sense" of what the veterans are dealing with as they recover from their injuries.

Retired Army Capt. Jae Barclay was seriously injured in 2006 when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device while deployed in Afghanistan.

Barclay, who lives near Houston, was one of only two survivors. Three others died. He suffered burns on nearly half of his body and spent the next 2 1/2 years at the hospital and is a two-time purple heart recipient.

After medically retiring in 2008 he now works as an associate broker for an insurance company.

"I don't want to be known as the guy who got wounded in Afghanistan," he said. "I started off early being angry and depressed ...but for me it was talking about it, talking it through. I didn't want to let some degenerate with a garage door opener decide what my life was going to be. That was the biggest thing for me, I decide what my life is going to be, not someone else."

He said after playing in the Bush Center's Warrior Open golf tournament he has gotten to know both George W. and Laura Bush.

"The first time I met him was in the hospital ... he walked up and he goes, 'It looks like your modeling career is over,' and everyone started laughing," Barclay said. "Fast forward to those golf tournaments, and it's cool he knows me on a personal level. We can talk and tell jokes, and it shows he really cares about the guys that stood on the wall and protected the country."

He said he was honored to be featured in the book and painted by his former commander-in-chief.

"It's awesome, it really does look a lot like me and I'm blown away" Barclay said. "It's something my family and I will cherish forever."  

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