I figured I'd post this here to see if anyone was interested in seeing it. This thread isn't meant for a debate (it'll just go around in circles) but to inform people about the event.
Also, if anyone is interested in volunteering, I believe they need help.
San Antonio, TX
February 11-13, 2005
Where:
St. Mary's University (map)
One Camino Santa Maria
San Antonio, TX
Schedule:
Feb 11, 12, 13 from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Press Conference: Feb 11 at 10:00 am
For more information about the exhibit or to volunteer, email Bill or Denise Wilkinson (Friends Meeting of San Antonio) or call: 210-520-9316http://www.afsc.org/eyes/about-the-exhibit.htm
Since 1917, the American Friends Service Committee has championed the dignity and worth of every individual, the sanc y of human life and humanity's collective responsibility to promote peace. For almost 90 years of work in war zones on four continents, we have gained an intimate knowledge of the costs and horrors of war.
When this exhibit was unveiled by our Chicago office in January 2004, there were 504 pairs of boots symbolizing the lost lives of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. With each passing week, each stop in a new city, more pairs of boots are added to represent the newly fallen. Alongside the boots stands a wall of remembrance with the names of the more than 11,000 Iraqi civilians who have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion.
As the exhibit makes its appearances across the country, families and friends come to grieve for lost loved ones and strangers honor those who gave their lives to a cause far from home.
At each stop, person after person leaves notes of commemoration, photographs of lost soldiers, identification tags, flowers, and American flags to accompany the boots on their journey.
Although a majority of Americans now believe this war is a tragic misadventure, the human cost of the Iraq War grows every day. How many more boots will be standing at silent attention before this war ends, before Iraqis and American soldiers are out of harm's way?
This traveling exhibit is a memorial to those who have fallen and a witness to our belief that no war can justify its human cost.
Mary Ellen McNish,
General Secretary, AFSC
How dare they remind the American people that there is a cost for their vacation home and stock portfolio! Memorials should be stationary, and located somewhere in the Washington D.C. area, where we don't have to see them. Imagine! Bringing this right to our doorstep!
WTF Ex? Is anyone even complaining?
Thanks Manny, I would love to go see it. My kids are off today, maybe we will head in that direction.
the reason we all have what we have is because of the people who wore those boots and the people who are still wearing the boots...
Oh, please. Spare me the shock and drama. My original sarcasm piece is, in fact, the Bush administration's official position. Why else would they refuse to allow video of the scores of flag draped coffins rolling off the Airplanes at Dover AFB anymore? THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE IT OR THINK ABOUT IT.
That's right.the reason we all have what we have is because of the people who wore those boots and the people who are still wearing the boots...
Who said anything about WTF the Bush administration thinks about it?
Spare you the shock & drama? Goddamn, ex, are you having a case of the Mondays? Looked like just a PSA to me...like if you want to go, it's coming.
Yeah, the Bush administration is very unpatriotic Ex.
Your on drugs.
I think its a great exibit.
Remind the people here at home about those great guys fighting for our freedom over there, and the freedoms of the less fortunate.
Um, you are bringing the drama.
War is and I think it is a powerful display.
Damn. This is here? I'm sending a reporter and a photog to cover it when they stop in Austin mid next-week.
I hate the rain
NEW: Exhibit at St. Mary's drives home cost of war
Web Posted: 02/11/2005 05:54 PM CST
Christopher Anderson
Express-News Staff Writer
After helping set out more than 1,000 pairs of shoes meant to symbolize the deaths of Iraqi civilians, April Tobias entered a room at St. Mary's University filled with combat boots. The second pair that she looked at held the name of a childhood friend who had been killed last year in Iraq.
Tobias, a 20-year-old college sop re, said that she had previously learned of Nicholas Perez's death, but seeing his name today on one of 140 pair of military-issue boots that were set up as part of an exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq war hit her hard.
“I sat down just to pay my respects to him and say a little prayer for him. Then I broke down,” said Tobias, who was quickly comforted by her roommate. “I started crying and she started crying. She didn't know him, but I talked about him to her.”
The boots, which were purchased from military surplus stores, are one of the highlights of “Eyes Wide Open,” an exhibit sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a social justice and peace group founded by the Quakers in 1917.
The exhibit has been in about 40 U.S. cities since early last year. It will be at St. Mary's Saturday and again on Sunday in Conference Room A of University Center. The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days.
One of the highlights of the exhibit has been that it usually features a pair of boots with the names of each of the U.S. troops that have been killed in Iraq.
But the chance of rain this weekend prompted the exhibit's organizers to move everything inside where there was less space to display more than 1,400 pairs of boots than the large and scenic campus field where they were originally going to be placed.
Marq Anderson, the exhibit's national tour coordinator, said that he would try to find another place on the campus to display the remaining boots so that people who view the exhibit in San Antonio can better comprehend how many U.S. troops have lost their lives in Iraq.
The exhibit also includes several displays that question President's Bush decision to send American troops to war in Iraq, including such topics as: “There Were No Weapons of Mass Destruction,” “There was No Connection Between Al Qaeda and Saddam” and “The World Is Not a Safer Place Since the Iraq War.”
Chris Peche’-Schulz, a San Antonio resident whose son, daughter-in-law and adopted son have served in Iraq, said that people who believe the war was justified would object to parts of “Eyes Wide Open.”
She said that as a member of a two support groups for families of U.S. troops who has been to the funerals of several soldiers from Texas who have been killed in Iraq that she tries to stay out of politics. Despite some reservations, she said she would encourage people to see the exhibit.
“It is a little bit controversial, but what I would really want to say is that it would be wonderful if the general public would come to look at it because I want them to be aware that the sacrifices our military has made. I want them to support our troops. You know they do this for us.”
In a news conference held at the onset of the exhibit today, Charles Cotrell, St. Mary's president, said he thought it was proper and appropriate that “Eyes Wide Open” be held on his campus because “universities should become sanctuaries for different points of view.
“If we cannot in civility try to understand what is going in our world then our very freedoms are lost in this country,” Cotrell said.
Those crazy pacifists make the best Oatmeal.The boots, which were purchased from military surplus stores, are one of the highlights of “Eyes Wide Open,” an exhibit sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a social justice and peace group founded by the Quakers in 1917.
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