Local veterans share the stories behind their tattoos

Everett’s Keith Sekora has a lot of tattoos.

“My left arm is fully sleeved, up across my back, and then halfway down my right arm.”

Nearly all of them reflect the time he spent in the military.

“I started with the first Gulf War and I did 10 years active duty in the Army. I got out and became a civilian police officer. Then after 9/11, I went back into the Air Force reserve, did several deployments there, and was medically retired in 2012.”

Sekora, 45, has six skulls tattooed around one of his arms. Each one represent a time he was nearly killed.

“Different things from being blown up, being shot at, helicopter crash, bad car accident when I was a police officer. And then the last one was I got shot in the back.”

Photos of Sekora’s tattoos will be on display at Auburn’s White River Valley Museum as a part of its upcoming Service Ink exhibit. It opens in June in honor of the 50th anniversary of Auburn’s Veterans Day Parade.

Lucky for Sekora, not all of his tattoos will be on display.

“That’s just a Japanese dream dragon,” Sekora said, when I ask about a tattoo covered by his shirt. “That’s a cover up. I passed out in Panama when I was in the Army, and my buddies got a tattoo on my arm. It was an ugly wizard. So, soon as I could, I had it covered up.”

Spanaway’s Daniel Evan was medically retired from the Army last year after 32 years of service.

“I have an eagle, a screaming eagle, on my chest and there’s a teardrop in it. That’s the only part that’s color. The teardrop is red, white and blue and those are for my friends I have lost in Iraq when I was there.”

Evan, 53, describes himself as a spiritual person, and his entire back is covered in what he calls his spirit guides: a grizzly bear, a wolf, a stag, and a salmon.

“With PTSD I went through a lot of different types of therapy. And I’ve always looked at things in nature to help me cope with certain things in my life. Fishing is one of my main outlets of physical meditation. Whether I’m out on a river, a lake or the Sound, I can forget about a lot of things I have seen, triggers that make you remember certain things. It helps you leave those problems behind. One of the last pieces I had put on the bottom of my back was a guy fly fishing.”

Both Sekora and Evan called their tattoos ‘badges of honor.’ Both suffer from PTSD and have many physical ailments. So I wondered, why get a tattoo – a permanent daily reminder of an experience that was so traumatic.

“So I remember,” Sekora said. “Part of my injury from being wounded in Afghanistan is I lost my short term memory. I have some brain damage so I don’t remember a lot. This helps me not forget what I’ve been through, what I’ve done. A lot of the incidents, someone did die. So it helps me remember the people that I was with, what happened, when I have a rough day, why I’m struggling, and to remind me to keep pushing forward.”

“Because it’s part of me now,” said Evan, who has plans for even more tattoos. “It’s not a picture on the wall that I can admire. This is who I am and I’m proud of it. I want people to ask, ‘Hey, what’s the story behind this?'”

Sekora, a big, bald guy who looks like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with, brought his 7-year-old daughter, Olivia, to our interview. I asked her what tattoo she’d like to see her dad get next.

“Probably butterflies. You could put on some purple butterflies to show that you have me!” she said.

Auburn’s White River Valley Museum is still seeking submissions for its Service Ink exhibit. The deadline is April 15. Click here to submit your tattoo photos.