 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. And even just how an event in a war can affect different people, you know, I make the cups to start conversations. My name is Aaron Tull, I'm a veteran of the 91 Gulf War. I've made and given away more than 21,000 cups since 2001. 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 the 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 out his shoulder, his hand out his hip, his hand out his knee. It's like, Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad. One, two, three, Baghdad, Baghdad. Eventually I figured out that he had three children in Baghdad and I said that out loud to the Marine next to me. I said, oh, he's got three kids in Baghdad and my buddy said Hiroshima Nagasaki, Hiroshima Nagasaki all gone and that guy dropped like we shot him. He just crumpled and just sobbed, just uncontrollably sobbed. And at the time I didn't know, maybe we had moved to Baghdad but anyway, it just really, it kind of undermined the argument of they hate freedom or they hate us. You know, this guy was just concerned about his three kids in Baghdad and so that messed with me and I decided I didn't want to be a gunslinger anymore. I got out of the Marine Corps, I took the GI Bill. I went to art school and I took a drawing class just as a whim kind of thing. But that instructor, Ben Sakaguchi, was Japanese-American. He said all arts political and that really resonated with me. Decorating the cups initially I started with, you know, my own insignia and my father's insignia. As it went on, you know, I'd borrow other people's insignia and toys, like the gas mask that I wore during the 1991 Gulf War, G.I. Joe made a version of it. You know, the collection just keeps growing. All the images mean something to me and they're emotional for me. So you can't really be thinking about too many other things when you're throwing the stamping. Then you can get lost in all kinds of crazy conversations in your head. There are times I cry in the middle of my doesn't making cups. But I feel like making the cups is something that I really need to do. 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 experiences in World War II until I came back from my war. You know, 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 cold, like, email 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 payoff 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 dropped the cup, you know. And there were, you know, hearing stories afterwards, like a woman who maybe had a hard relationship with her father. You know, 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. Yeah, I want you to get done messing with it. I mean, keep messing with it and 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. And so at Berkeley you get exposed to so many things. The conversation is here. All you gotta do is listen. There's something about the Marine Corps that I try to bring to teaching and try to bring working here that, you know, we are all in it together and, you know, 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 find out that they're just cups. So I'd rather just say they're 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 of the way they're made. It's because they resonate with somebody else. There's still Marines out there in combat in 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 leasing me from my obligation to try.