U.S. forces are scheduled to depart Iraq in December. But on the giant concrete barriers that still ring the constellations of bases around the country, their artistic footprint will remain.

Over the past eight years, all around Iraq, troops turned the jersey barriers and t-walls designed to protect them from insurgent attacks into concrete canvases. Sometimes the pictures they painted chased the monotony away from the landscapes of their deployment. Other times they spelled out what their service meant to them, honored a fallen friend, pined for home, or bragged about their units.