That is one message that I heard from Michael Schwartz, author of War Without End, when he participated in the discussion on Lessons From Iraq and the War on Terror this past Thursday at the University of Colorado, Denver campus.

(Wasn't that a lesson that we were supposed to get, on the individual level, in Elementary School? At what point do we drop the lessons and pick up the bombs?)

Schwartz also brought up the point that I have heard several times before:


I wanted to write about the thoughtful discussion that was held on the University of Colorado at Denver campus this past Thursday, but I've found that I can't. I took pages and pages of notes. I also took mental notes of my impressions and feelings about what was said and how it was said. A few years ago, I would have written an article from my notes, but something is blocking me right now and I'm going to listen to it.

The people from the University of Colorado at Denver who created this event were kind, wonderful people and it was a great experience to work with them. They brought speakers, students, and the community together for a much-needed discussion regarding the U.S policy in Iraq and the world.

I enjoyed hearing from each of the speakers, and I learned a lot from both Mr. Schwartz and from the Director of Homeland Security. I could see how, if I were in the shoes of Mr. Recca, Director of the Center of Homeland Security in Colorado Springs, I would see the world the same way that he does.

It was all good. I wish that you could have been there.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open, Iraq War

People just want to be heard.

It was about 20 degrees out when we set up the Eyes Wide Open exhibit at the Auraria Campus which serves three schools: Metropolitan State College of Denver, the University of Colorado at Denver, and the Community College of Denver. It never got really warm all day and I am still frozen to the bone.

One of the first visitors that I interacted with at the exhibit was angry. I never figured out what he was angry about, but he was a veteran and he needed to tell his story. I get that. So I listened. And I learned some things. Connecting with that man made all of the lugging of boots and shoes worth it.

But there was more.

We have a sign about the veteran suicides and we place a pair of boots that have been painted white in front of it. These boots represent all veterans who have committed suicide while in the service or afterward. We will never know the number of people this one pair of boots represents. One young man was very, very touched that we remembered those who don't count in the casualty statistics. His friend, an Iraq war vet, killed himself a month ago. His brother, another vet of this insane war, has lost his home and his marriage because of his violence toward his wife.

War is an atrocity that reverberates through families and communities, and the damage will last for generations. How can we do this to ourselves?

I saw another man bent down for a long time in front of a pair of boots . I knew that he must have known the soldier represented by those boots. I heard his sniffles. He tenderly lined up one boot with the other. When he finally left the boots, I asked him if he knew people who had been killed in Iraq. That's when the stories came. The young soldier who was represented by those boots had died only a short time after turning 18. The two were good friends. The man I spoke with was traveling behind the vehicle carrying his friend as it exploded, killing all inside.

There is a tradition in the Army that I still don't understand completely, but soldiers, after a certain amount of combat duty, may be awarded spurs. It is a high honor. At another point, they may be awarded a Stetson hat. These honors come from the tradition of the Calvary. The man that I was just writing about, whose 18-year-old friend died two vehicles ahead of him, had earned two pairs of spurs and a Stetson. While we all shivered among the boots and shoes, he had his girlfriend bring a pair of his gold spurs and he placed them on the boots of his departed friend. It was stunning.

4,257 U.S. soldiers and countless Iraqis.

Isn't it interesting how sadness is so much more bearable when there are more shoulders to help carry the burden?


I hope to have photos from today soon.
I found some information on spurs and Stetsons here.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open, Iraq War

When he walked into the library and saw so many boots and shoes spread across the floor, the little boy who could not have been older than 4, asked, "Do we need to take off our shoes?" The innocence and awareness in those eyes...

He was standing amidst a collection of boots representing the soldiers from Colorado that have died in this occupation of Iraq. He was looking at hundreds of shoes that represent the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis who have died because of our presence in their country.

He is a precious little boy who I hope will never have to see what the people who were represented in that room have seen.


Last night I worked my first exhibit as coordinator of the Colorado Eyes Wide Open. It was held at the Jefferson County Open School, which is the most human and the most whole school I've ever known. As their site says, the world truly is their classroom. I want to go back to school and be a student there. I'm willing to start at first grade again, because I know that I would learn life skills and valuable life lessons that I don't have yet as an adult.

I watched the 16 year old organizer work magic as she and her crew made the whole thing happen - from set-up, through hosting the site for 3 hours, to take-down. I spoke extensively with three 15-year-olds - some of the most interesting people I've spoken with in a long time - and I came away with a sense of hope. The students at that school are incredible beings that exhibit maturity, confidence, refined group skills, and polished conflict resolution skills. They are already contributing for the betterment of this world with a sense of themselves and a way of being in the world that a majority of adults have not yet attained.

These people were probably not born with anything that we all don't have. But they have grown in an environment where they have been supported and nourished in ways that most public schools are not willing to do.

Last night was the school's annual Peace Night. This event began after the events of 9/11. The entire school participates in a phenomenal collage of events, displays and fundraisers. Unfortunately, I didn't take the opportunity to explore all that was going on, because I wanted to stay with the Eyes Wide Open exhibit.

I did go to the school theater, though, to listen to speakers Greg Johnson and David Bacon of Playing For Change. You may have seen Bill Moyers' show about this organization that is creating peace through music. They bring street musicians from around the world together through technology. Not only do they create peace through the universal language of music, but also through their non-profit organization that builds schools in South Africa and Nepal. Great men doing great work.

I'm always touched by my experiences with this exhibit. Even though its point is to show the human cost of war, thus it focuses on death, it has a life of its own. As I heard more than once last night: you can hear about the exhibit, but until you have witnessed it and felt the impact made by rows and rows of empty shoes and boots, each carrying a name and age which make real the humanity that once gave them life, you won't really feel the impact of the exhibit.

I hope that through acknowledging the death of our soldiers and those Iraqis whose lives have been lost, we will decide that we are not willing to tolerate war anymore.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open, photography

I really need to be doing other things right now. I'd love to write more, but THINGS ARE HAPPENING. Opportunities to display the Eyes Wide Open exhibit are falling into my lap. I'm getting ready for a trip (stay tuned). I have fruits and veggies to freeze before I go, cleaning to do, etc., etc.

Aaaaahhhhhhh.....

But tonight was the AFSC holiday party and I couldn't miss it. I wrote last year, after a holiday party with activist friends, about how much I love being around these people. I am not a party person, but I will make time to be with wonderful people who use their lives to make the world a better place. I'm just honored that they allow me to be there, also! ;-)

Tonight we sang a song together and I leave the words with you:

Singing Through the Hard Time
- Utah Phillips

We are singing through the hard time,
singing through the hard time
Working for the good times to come
We are singing through the hard time,
singing through the hard time
Working for the good time to come.

Some times our living gets so dark and lonely
It seems like there's nothing we can do
So we reach out to each other, and raise a song together
And let our voices carry us through.

When the war clouds gather it's so easy to get angry
And just as hard not to be afraid
But you know in your own heart no matter what happens
You just can't turn your back and walk away

Hand in hand together we help each other carry
The light of peace within us every day
And if we can learn to give it, to walk and talk and live it
That world of peace won't be so far away.


Peace to you this cold December evening. Sing a song. Our voices will carry us through.

Labels: AFSC, Christmas, Eyes Wide Open

I recently took on the volunteer job of Coordinator for the Colorado Eyes Wide Open exhibit.

The Eyes Wide Open exhibit is a display with pairs of boots that represent each of our soldiers killed in the Iraq War/Occupation. It also includes many pairs of shoes that represent Iraqi dead. The exhibit used to be national, but it got too big and expensive to move thousands of boots and shoes all over the country, so now it's been divided into an exhibit for each state, each one containing boots representing the men and women from that state who have died in this war.


I worked on the national exhibit when it came to Denver two years ago. On the day that we took the display down, 2,753 of our young men and women had died in Iraq. Nine of our soldiers died just in the two days that the display was up.

Today, 4,193 of our soldiers have died in this occupation, along with 176 soldiers from the U.K., 138 soldiers from other countries, and, of course, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.



Oh. These photos. Remembering... Blessings to all who have died in violence around the world...



Well, after digressing for a few paragraphs, I come to the point of what I wanted to write in the first place (Sheeeesh! I've had no words for days and now ya can't stop me!).

Today another woman and I met with some members of the Amnesty Club of a local High School because they are interested in hosting the Eyes Wide Open exhibit at their school. I don't know what about this touches me the most:

1) This High School is not in the most affluent neighborhood of Denver. Maybe the Eyes Wide Open exhibit will have the ability to open one student's eyes to the cost of war, helping him or her to realize that the price is too high.

2) The young people with whom we met are poised, confident and capable. I have seen this a lot in the youth of today. They are not like anyone that I knew when I was that age. They give me hope.

3) This administration has not allowed us to see the dead and wounded of this war. We can easily live each day not even remembering that our country is involved with fighting and occupying another sovereign nation, killing its citizens and displacing millions. The Eyes Wide Open exhibit is a tiny look into the truth of what is happening. I am proud to be a part of bringing this glimpse of reality to people too young to have seen the carnage of Vietnam, thus they don't know what is being blocked from their view now.

I will probably be writing more about this exhibit as I attend the events that will be occurring at different venues across the state. I know that these experiences will change my life.

If you are trying to figure out how to use up a few minutes of free time - or if you're curious about my posts from the Eyes Wide Open exhibit when it was here two years ago - here are some links to the posts I wrote at that time:

Eyes Wide Open
Biceps
A photo of the Iraqi shoe display
What Would We Do If Another Country Did This To Us?
People Just Like Us
Boots Tell Haunting Tale Of Losses In Iraq
Stories

Labels: Eyes Wide Open, Iraq War, photography

My apologies, but I had to put the entire article written by Bill Johnson of the Rocky Mountain News:

Boots tell haunting tale of losses in Iraq

October 11, 2006

From a distance, it looks like a lot of nothing, or at least - based on what both papers had said - a little oversold.

Just boots.

Even so, you get out of the car, cross the street and wade in. It took most people, by my totally unscientific study, about five minutes before the first teardrop fell.

I hadn't planned on this, to write of "Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War," the display in Civic Center of 2,748 pairs of combat boots, each representing a soldier who has died in the Iraq War.

I was driving past the park when I noticed it. I'd been to the war, knew guys who had fallen.

OK, I figured, let's just see how accurate this is, see if they had every dead soldier's name. I went looking for one in particular.

They envelop you, the boots do. It is an odd thing. The soldiers whose names are attached to each pair never wore them. Yet you stare.

Each pair sits exactly four feet from the next, all of them positioned in long, perfectly aligned rows.

"People say it looks like a cemetery, Arlington National, mostly," said Claire Ryder, the exhibit's volunteer coordinator.

"I say it's worse because it is boots, with names, photos, memories and actual lives attached."

Maybe that accounts for the haunting feeling. The faces of the dead stare out from many of the boots in large, laminated color photographs - many are Army-issue portraits, in which the soldier is unsmiling.

Teddy bears, plastic flowers and American flags adorn some. Sunflowers and Halloween candy are stuffed in one pair, both placed there by the dead soldier's mother, who had flown in from California a day earlier to see the exhibit.

The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, has shown the exhibit in more than 80 U.S. cities. Colorado is its last stop this year.

The committee keeps a large stock of tissues that volunteers, who include ministers and psychologists, keep in hand as they slowly walk the perimeter of the display.

Families of the dead added the mementos to the boots at each of the exhibit's previous stops. Some are quite elaborate and include family photographs of the soldiers holding their young children.

The most haunting is what is attached to the boots of Lt. Col. Mark D. Taylor, a surgeon attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.

In a now-laminated e-mail to friends on Jan. 30, 2004, he wrote:

"It is very hostile over here, and we have done over 170 trauma cases over the last five months. Sometimes the Iraqis shoot mortars or rockets at us, but usually they miss. I probably will be coming home in April, so hopefully we can get together.

"See you soon. Mark."

Scheduled to fly home March 25, Dr. Mark Taylor died March 20, 2004, when an enemy rocket hit the telephone booth he had just entered. He was placing a call home to his parents. He was 41.

"I think what gets you are the ages," Claire Ryder says, barely holding back her own tears. "It gets to everybody here."

Ann Griffin, 20, of Thornton, is softly weeping along with her friend, Zeta Conner, 23, of Denver. She had come to see the boots of her husband's best friend, Lance Cpl. Andrew Riedel, 19, of Northglenn, whom she'd known since childhood. He was killed in a roadside bomb explosion Oct. 30, 2004.

"It's so powerful and moving," Ann Griffin says. "I've never thought they got enough recognition. It's so humbling, so heartbreaking."

They stay for more than a half-hour, searching for Andrew Riedel's name. Although the boots are arranged by state, they could not find his name in the Colorado section.

Jody Luna, 53, of Denver, is slowly making her way through the boots. She had read of the exhibit, never figuring for a second the effect it would have on her once she began walking through it.

"You can actually picture the people the boots represent," she says slowly. "It's so sad, just to see the ages."

American Friends purchased nearly all of the boots. Veterans, too, often show up, run home, grab their old boots and donate them.

The mother of Spc. Thomas I. Sweet II, 23, of North Dakota, who died in a roadside blast on Nov. 27, 2003, purchased all 13 sets of desert combat boots that represent the deaths of North Dakota soldiers in the war.

Off to the side, too, is a collection of hundreds of civilian shoes that surround a circular poster-board display of smiling Iraqis in huge color photographs.

The shoes represent the hundreds of thousands of civilian Iraqis who have died in the war.

On the other side of the color posters are stark, black-and-white photographs of wailing Iraqis cradling or holding their dead. You just stare.

I did, finally, find the name I had come searching for attached to a nearly brand-new pair of boots.

A simple white plastic flower and a small Colorado flag protruded from them. The small white attached card simply gave his rank, name, age, and state of birth.

I'll just say here that I saluted the boots and said a little prayer. I'll leave it at that.

Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-954-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open

We participated in the candlelight vigil held at the Eyes Wide Open exhibit last night. We walked in silence. First around the 2,748 pairs of boots standing for the U.S. soldiers who have died in this war and occupation (the number has risen to 2753 since set-up on Monday), then around the shoes representing the Iraqis who have died.

We stood for a long time at the end - around the Iraqi shoes. First, a wave of sorrow came over me.

So sorry...

so sorry...

I pay taxes that are used to kill you. So sorry... I am complicit in this. The pain of the mothers... Young children maimed or killed.

So sorry...

Then W came to mind. If I really mean it... If I really mean that I believe in giving love to all creation, then that means W, too. And all of his co-horts. Don't have to like what he does. Don't have to NOT hold him accountable, either. But not adding any more violence to the world means to hold W in the same light and love as the Iraqis who are injured through this war. And the U.S. families who are in pain from the effects of it. And those people who believe that they are killing for a noble cause. Everyone.

So as I stood there last night, in a circle of friends that I may or may not know yet, I tried to put my mind and heart around it all. It was not easy.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open

The display of shoes representing 100,000 Iraqi people killed in the war.

Yesterday, a study came out with the number 655,000, which to me seems more realistic.

Saddam is on trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

I wonder... why isn't W standing trial for the same crimes?

Labels: Eyes Wide Open

Labels: Eyes Wide Open

Labels: Eyes Wide Open

Eyes Wide Open

After carrying bags and bags of civilian shoes and containers and containers of soldier's boots yesterday, my biceps are sore and worthless this morning. Maybe this will motivate me to start pushing some arm weights!

2748 pairs of boots. Most of the boots were donated - some are as old as WWII - so they did not belong to the soldiers whose names are attached to them. Each pair of boots is only representing a soldier - giving us something to see when there is nothing left to see.

2748 pairs of boots. The number keeps growing. More pairs of boots have to be tagged and added to the display at every stop of the exhibit.

Some boots have a photo attached, given by the family. One pair that I placed had not only a photo, but also 3 or 4 pages of information on the person and statements about the war. This person was a 20-year-old woman. I was sure to take a lot of time arranging the photo and pages to look nice and so that a passer-by could see the photo first thing. This woman was very pretty - and young.

A few pairs of boots are displayed separately. These are the actual boots of the soldier - donated by his/her family. Casey Sheehan's boots are there.

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice has some photos taken yesterday during the set-up. I notice that there are no photos of the civilian shoes that represent the 200,000 or so Iraqis who have died in our war and occupation. I'll be taking photos today.

My friend, Gaye, who I traveled with to Camp Casey this past Easter spoke at the press conference yesterday. The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News carried stories on it.

If you live in the Denver area, please stop by to see the exhibit. It runs from 7 - 7 today (Tuesday) and from 7 - 2 or 3 tomorrow. Tonight at 7, all are welcome to join us at the exhibit as we stand in a silent candlelight vigil.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open

It's 5:45 a.m., 38 degrees and wet out there. This morning, I am going downtown to Civic Center Park to help set up the Eyes Wide Open exhibit. It has been very warm so far this month and now this weather - a high of 42 degrees and snow this evening.

The Eyes Wide Open exhibit includes a pair of boots for every U.S. soldier that has died - now 2744 - and hundreds of pairs of shoes representing the hundreds of thousands Iraqi civilians who have died. It's going to be a powerful experience to place those shoes and boots, realizing that they're not just shoes and boots, but that they represent someone who was loved by family and friends. They represent people who died so that the U.S. could occupy a country and position itself in the Middle East.

.

Labels: Eyes Wide Open