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TRAVELING MEMORIAL
Boots left behind
BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

There’s something about a pair of shoes. They’re so personal, so essential to people’s lives. You look at two empty shoes, sitting side by side, and you know that at some point somebody had slipped them on his or her feet.

That, it seems, is what makes the anti-war exhibit "Eyes Wide Open" so powerful. The nationally acclaimed display, which opens at Boston City Hall Plaza on July 22, consists primarily of used combat boots, as many as 890 pairs, all lined in perfect rows. Each pair of boots, accompanied by a person’s name and photograph, serves as a tribute to the US soldiers who have died in the Iraq war.

A traveling memorial of sorts, "Eyes Wide Open" has made headlines in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Providence, and numerous other cities. Now, it’s coming to Boston by way of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker-based peace-and-justice organization. The AFSC project, according to the local chapter’s Joseph Gerson, was conceived by two of his Chicago colleagues last January. The two staffers, he says, "were deeply concerned" about the growing numbers of American-troop casualties in Iraq — particularly in light of the Bush administration’s penchant for repressing official information about and images of the war dead. AFSC wanted, in Gerson’s words, "to bring the human consequences of war into greater public view."

Initially, the exhibit featured 500 used boots, donated by an Army/Navy store. But as the Iraq war persisted, and the death toll rose, the AFSC had to buy more boots (for $29.99 per pair). Other boots have been offered to the exhibit by surviving family members, who, according to Gerson, "are raising serious questions about the war and why their loved ones are being sacrificed." Still others come from veterans who have returned from Iraq.

Although the exhibit commemorates the loss of American soldiers, it also pays homage to the thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died in the conflict — as symbolized by a mound of some 10,000 spent shell casings. The empty bullets are meant to remind us that, as Gerson says, "There are people at the end of our military guns."

Gerson believes the memorial’s power is enhanced by the Bush administration’s refusal to discuss the human consequences of this war. Instead, it has banned media outlets from photographing the draped military caskets returning from overseas. And it has hidden from military families. "There is a void," he says, "whereas, in other wars, the war dead have been honored and recognized. This time, there is nothing."

"Eyes Wide Open" aims to change that. And its timing in Boston deliberately coincides with the week when many of the country’s politicians and policymakers will converge here for the Democratic National Convention. Gerson and his fellow AFSC members hope their exhibit inspires delegates to reconsider the consequences of war and peace, the importance of social justice, and the value of democracy. "The whole world will be watching Boston and the convention," he says, "so this is an important time to raise these fundamental questions."

"Eyes Wide Open" opens at noon on Thursday, July 22 at Boston City Hall. It will remain in Boston through July 29. For more information, visit www.eyes.peacechicago.org/, or call AFSC at (617) 661-6130.


Issue Date: July 23 - 27, 2004
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