“Darhil Crooks at the Atlantic sent us the text for a story called ‘The Tragedy of the American Military.’ As we started brainstorming, the idea of classic green plastic army men—iconic and strong but knocked over and scattered—rose to the top. After the idea was approved, we realized we needed to find vintage army men that were not only molded with better detail and facial expressions than today's plastic versions, but also toys not completely marred by years of play. Thankfully, there’s Etsy. We bought several lots of vintage army men and sorted through them until we found enough to populate the grid.”