Standing vigil at the display: Pete Bronson of Veterans For Peace
(Photo: Elaine Brower / NLN)
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — On October 14th, the day prior to the final presidential debate, organizations brought the moving Eyes Wide Open exhibit to the campus at Hofstra. This memorial was created by the American Friends Service Committee, a part of the Quaker Society, in 2004 and was started with 500 pairs of soldiers’ combat boots that represented the national death toll as it was then of those military members who were killed in Iraq. Four years later, the exhibit holds 4,182 pairs of combat boots and hundreds of Iraqi shoes, representing the innocent civilian lives taken by those soldiers wearing the combat boots.
At the Hofstra campus only the New York State boots were displayed, representing a total of 183 lives lost in Iraq. Sad posters with the faces of Iraqi children surrounded by the shoes also stood a few feet away from those boots. The exhibit, brought there by AFSC, Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Veterans for Peace (VFP) and the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Tomorrows, was on display from noon until 6 PM at the Labyrinth located in the middle of the campus.
As students and professors headed in and out of class, they passed the exhibit. Most walked through with sad expressions, nodding heads, whispering to each other, and honoring the dead. Those of us who carried the burden of explaining what this all meant, handed out flyers and information explaining its importance. Of course, you had an occasional screech of “We Love War!” and “Bush is Great!” coming from somewhere far off in the distance, as a coward would shout so as not to be identified by those who may actually be suffering and reflecting.
At one point early on, a father showed up to remove his son’s boots and name tag from the display. He was angered by the fact that AFSC would use his son’s death in this way. However, he stood, with a friend, off to the side of the Labyrinth for over 30 minutes shocked by the beauty of what he was seeing, and not really knowing how to approach us.
He argued with the AFSC coordinator about how we must kill the terrorists, and his son did not die in vain, and we had some nerve doing this, and then handed her a DVD of the latest right-wing garbage propaganda “Obsession” detailing how “all of Islam” wants us dead because of our “freedoms.”
The rest of us stood aside and let him rant, feeling his pain, anger and frustration. He left quietly and we remained there talking to those coming and going the rest of the day. The feeling when you walk through the display of combat boots, dog tags, photos, and memorabilia donated by family members is one of complete despair, grief and total sadness. It drains the emotions, as well as fueling a fire of passion to end all wars.
The march of the dead
(Photo: Elaine Brower / NLN)
At closing, 6 PM, the “March of the Dead”, a procession of black-clad students with white face masks symbolizing those Iraqi’s and Afghani’s killed in the wars, proceeded from across campus and stopped at the Exhibit. The vision was so absolutely moving that everyone who was passing stopped and watched as the marching dead surrounded the display of boots in a circle of silence. A reading of the names of all of the fallen soldiers and those innocent civilians continued with the ringing of a gong to announce the solemnity of what war really meant to the lives of others.
Those of us who remained there found it hard to pack up and leave. Flowers had been placed on the boots, and in the middle of the Labryinth earlier in the day, which remained when the exhibit was removed as a symbol to remind all those who passed by that we are still at war and more boots and shoes will be added to the pile.
