This weekend, the American Friends Service Committee-sponsored exhibit, Eyes Wide Open, made a stop here in Downingtown, PA. A stark and moving visual representation of the individual human cost of our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, Eyes Wide Open is a memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers and Iraqi civilian fatalities in the form of a pair of boots or shoes representing each life lost.
The Quaker Meeting I attend had the honor of hosting this display of 190 pairs of military boots... one for each soldier from Pennsylvania that was killed. A tag adorned each pair, bearing the name and the hometown for the son or daughter (brother, sister, mother, father...) and in some cases, a photo, notes, letters, and other mementos donated by their loved ones.
A perfectly beautiful autumn day... colored leaves swirling among rows of boots standing in silent attention.
Included in this exhibit was also a small memorial, entitled "The War Within", dedicated to the more skewed numbers of hidden casualties...'white boots' representing the soldiers who had taken their own lives upon returning home.
Offering my help in any way possible to this effort, I was given the task of helping to move the exhibit from its current location inside the schoolhouse, protected from the previous day's rain, to the outdoors... a place just across the field and within view of plain Quaker headstones. In particular, I was asked to relocate the display of shoes representing the Iraqi civilians who were killed during the conflict to a clearing just in front of our playground.
I carefully gathered the pairs of shoes, tagged with foreign names, and ages ranging from 80 to a mere month old.... sandals, sneakers, dress shoes, tiny baby booties.. and, with the help of two other women, arranged them in a kind of labyrinth formation that invited the visitors to walk among them. It was then the full power of this exhibit hit me... as fully as I imagine it was intended to. I had already been a peace activist in mind and soul, but this... this went straight to my heart.
This is not a protest. This is not a political statement. This is a simple and stunning reminder of war, whether wrong or righteous...and its ultimate reality.
