Last Wednesday, I spent the afternoon on the National Mall in Washington DC, helping to set out the (then) 2,428 pairs of combat boots that are at the center of the American Friends Service Committee’s traveling antiwar installation, “Eyes Wide Open”.
Each pair of boots represents a US service-member who has been killed in Iraq. The two clunky black boots in each pair have their laces tied together (for easy handling) and have the name, age, and hometown of the represented GI on a laminated card that is attached there. I gather that some of the boots are the actual combat boots of that soldier, and some are simply representative. Members of the anti-war veterans’ organizations that have been working with AFSC on the project have been in touch with all the family members involved, who have the option of having “Name withheld” put on the tag if they don’t want their loved one’s name included in the exhibition.
Very, very few of the tags that I read said “Name withheld.”
When I was working down there, it was the day before the exhibit was due to open. We had a number of preliminary tasks to do. One was simply to count the pairs of boots in the group of plastic bins used to transport the boots pertaining to each of the different states. A fellow-volunteer named Constance and I counted our way through the bins for a number of different states, finishing up with Texas.
Even just handling the boots to do the counting was already a much more moving experience than I’d been expecting. The boots had been brought here in big Rubbermaid-style storage bins, that were laid out along the side of the grass there in alphabetical order by state. We (and other volunteer duos working alongside us) had to take the boots out of each bin, counting them as we went, and then put them back in, counting again (to make sure.) Constance and I got into a rhythm. There were so many bins! It’s not till you stop to think about it that you realize how much sheer space 2,428 pairs of combat boots must take up. Each bin held roughly 20 pairs.
One-two-three-four… Slow and systematic. Try not to get the laces knotted around each other. Lay the pairs out within easy reach as you take them out. Neater works better…
Seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twentyone. Right! Twentyone. Now, let’s count them back in. “You start!” One-two-three-four…
Then you start reading the names and the pitifully young ages of these men (and the much rarer women). And the hometowns. And you get to thinking about the life snuffed out of this young person.
Many of the boots have family memorabilia (laminated against the weather) also attached to them: Photos, poems, children’s drawings. Stuffed animals. Flags. Funeral eulogies.
It can get to you. But you can’t let it get to you, because you have to keep focused on the counting.
Eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen…
And then we came to Texas. Other duos had kind of side-skipped it, since its collection ran to twelve big bins. While Constance was off getting some water to drink, I took a deep breath and started in on it.
Texas added up to 214 pairs of boots.
“I wonder how many of those funerals George W. Bush went to?”
H’mm.
Later, I worked with the groups of people trying to lay the boots out on the big broad lawn there. We were at the Washington Monument end of the Mall– but you could look up easily and see the great looming mass of the US Capitol Building at the far end of the greensward. The building, that is, where back in October 2002 the 535 lawmakers acting with their “eyes wide open” gave President Bush carte blanche to do anything he damn’ well pleased to Iraq… including, to invade it.
The boots were laid out in a broad, grid-based array. There were 39 in each row– meaning some 63 rows in all. Roughly four feet between each pair. If you think of all those 2,428 soldiers standing there to attention, this is roughly where their boots would be.
But the soldiers aren’t there…
This was mind-numbing work, too. Hauling the bins along the lines, taking out the boots, having someone get down and arrange them properly, respectfully… The work was a little disorganized, since the guys laying out the grids with strings and red golf-tees often weren’t far ahead of those of us trying to position the boots.
The blazing sun ground its way slowly down the big sky.
There were lots of passers-by. Nearly everyone seemed very interested, and very supportive. Random people stopped and offered to help. It got so that when I needed someone to help me haul a bin onto one of the little moving-dollies they had there, I would just ask a passer-by and he or she would always seem happy to help.
(George W. Bush is in deep, deep trouble over this war.)
When my four hours were up, I walked over to the other part of the exhibit, where they’d been working with huge piles of civilian shoes that represented the Iraqi civilian deaths during the war.
Here, they hadn’t even bothered to have a one-to-one representativity. Which total do you count, anyway? I was glad to see they had a big board highlighting the “epidemiological” study that concluded– ways back, a long time ago now– that just under 100,000 Iraqis had met a premature death on account of the war.
What the organizers had done with the pairs of civilian shoes was great. These, too, had the two shoes in each pair attached together, and had tags with the names of killed Iraqi civilians on them. But groups of volunteers had been spending long hours here laying them out end to end in the form of a huge and very complex labyrinth.
“Go ahead, walk it!” someone said. I did. I kept my eyes focused on the shoes as I walked: men’s shoes, women’s shoes, girls’ shoes, boys’ shoes, baby shoes. Scuffed and mangled shoes. Brand new party shoes. I looked at the shoes and followed the labyrinth in toward the center, and forgot all about the Capitol Building looming so close above me. It was very meditative.
… Well, I never had the chance to see the whole layout of all of the boots and shoes there. I gather that between Thursday and Sunday they had a large number of different activities planned there.
On Thursday, there were terrible storms all over DC. The exhibit organizers had made a decision not to try to take the boots off the exhibit to a dry place, but just to let them stand. I guess combat boots are meant to withstand bad weather. I don’t know about the civilian shoes, though. As I went to various meetings in DC Thursday and saw the downpours, I thought about the boots standing there.
… Well, guess who else went to the exhibit while it was up? Richard Perle– the “Prince of Darkness” himself! One of the major intellectual architects of the war.
Bill Perry, a disabled veteran of the US-Vietnam War and a member of “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” and other antiwar groups, was there and happened to recognize Perle. He put this post about the confrontation that a number of the antiwar people there– mainly war vets– had with Perle up onto David Swanson’s website Afterdowningstreet.org.
There are pictures there, too. I particularly like this one.
Perry wrote there:
- Richard Perle had a PBS camera crew about 80 or 90 yards off to the side of the Speakers’ Rostrum @ yesterday’s AFSC Eyes Wide Open (BOOTS) Demo, in Washington, DC. The PBS Producers said they were rehabilitating Perle’s image, so he can be kicked upstairs, similar to the Bush promotion of Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank.
They thought they wouldn’t be noticed using the “Boots” demo background during the speaking portion of the EWO demo…
I wish I’d been there for that!
Yes, it certainly seems very exploitative if Perle and the people filming him were using the Boots installation as a background for an attempt to rehabilitate him politically…
On the other hand, at least Perle did dare to go near the exhibit and be exposed to the potent reminders it gives of the costs of war.
As for our President???
I wonder how many trips George Bush made to the Mall to see the boots. Perhaps the number is close to the number of funerals he has attended.
Helena,
Could you show us some photos of the “BOOTS” protests?
You can see some good pics on the People’s Daily website, here.
The bottom one shows you the capitol building, where the two houses of Congress meet, at the far end of the Mall.
Those PD pics were from DC. These ones were from July 2005, in Philly– far fewer boots then!
I see from the EWO website that the exhibit will be in Scranton, PA, May 20-26; in Lewisburg, PA, May 27-28; in Frederick MD, May 27-28… then it’ll head west to Wisconsin dells, Fort Wayne, Dubuque, Columbus, and be in Duluth Minnesota for July 4.
Readers in those parts of the US, check it out!
Helena,
Billmon (www.billmon.org) has a harrowing and lapidary piece up about Haditha. A piece which should be required reading the length and breadth of the United States…and elsewhere. Should be required reading because it crystallizes what this “war of choice” is doing to our two peoples.
In his words, “now it appears that instead of a symbolic My Lai, we have the genuine article.”
Fifteen unarmed Iraqi civilians murdered in cold blood by U.S. Marines. Seven of them children, one of whom was a little three year old girl. Three of the adults were women, one of them the grandmother. Her husband, the grandfather, was one of the adult men.
I think the Boots people should create a special, separate “shrine” there showing fifteen pairs of Iraqi shoes and sandals. Seven of them children’s sandals. One of those pairs ever so tiny – to fit the feet of the little three-year-old girl shot in the head at point blank range.
And maybe a Koran should be placed side-by-side with the U.S. Military’s Code of Conduct or whatever it’s called. The Koran because according to the little girl who survived the massacre her father had taken their Koran and was praying over it. Praying for his family. When the Marines came to their house to liberate them.
Fiends. Moloch. Rough beasts slouching toward…
Bush. Cheney. Perle. Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld. Feith. Munch’s The Scream. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The horror. The horror. Disintegration. Black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand…that which the eye fears to see when it is done. Words not able to express…pressure of reality shredding, fragmenting thought, phrases. Chaos. Darkness. Death. Nothingness.
piece up about Haditha.
Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” said Murtha, D-Pa.
Time magazine reported March 27 that Marines “went on a rampage” and killed 15 unarmed Iraqis, including seven women and three children near Haditha after the death of Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20. The military has begun an investigation into the incident.
Marines in Iraq killed civilians
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060518/NEWS07/605180453/1009
Twenty-three people were killed in the incident, relatives of the dead told Knight Ridder.
The uncle of one survivor, a 13-year-old girl, told Knight Ridder that the girl had watched the Marines open fire on her family and that she had held her 5-year-old brother in her arms as he died. The girl shook visibly as her uncle relayed her account, too traumatized to recount what happened herself.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14604341.htm
Dear Helena,
Thank you for what you do here. I live overseas, and reliable unbiased news can be hard to get. Your description of setting out the boots was a moving tribute to the men and women who wore them and the folks who have organized it. One thing that I recall from my military service, though, was how to line up. The command to “dress right” meant to have the man in front of you at the fingertip of your outstretched arm, and the man to your left as far as your elbow with your left hand on your hip. So, live soldiers at attention would, in fact. be a little denser than your boots, but much harder to walk amongst.
Thank you again for your work,
Robert
Empty boots, loss of freedoms, hardship on immigrants, discomfort at airports, are all reminders of the fight we are in. Reminders that whenever somebody utters Allahu Akhbar, bad things happen, here, in Iraq, and yesterday in a court in Istanbul.
The US, its citizens, and its soldiers stepped up to the fight. I am grateful for that.
“The US, its citizens, and its soldiers stepped up to the fight. I am grateful for that.”
You missed the article above where US troops killed 23 civilians, including a three year old Iraqi child, for no reason last November. Apparently all humans do bad things, no matter what they utter while doing it.
And any people who support or start up a war where none existed are the most evil, again no matter what they say.
But, we are safe from those immaginary WMDs. Yes, that’s what this war in Iraq brought us.
whenever somebody utters Allahu Akhbar, bad things happen
“To our kids and our mommys make good use of it: “go to sleep, if not Bin Laden will come” and we “the Kids” fall asleep by threat!! The Fall of Twin Towers is still a Mystery!!.”
The “Eyes Wide Open” exhibit was in Austin, TX in February 2005. There were 1,466 boots then.
A local reporter wrote an exceptionally sensitive and personal article for the American-Statesman about his experience sitting in the exhibit at night and included quotes from supporters and opponents of the war. The quotes illustrated what is for me the most important aspect of the exhibit – its power to reach those on both sides, especially those who may support the war but also appreciate that the exhibit honors the sacrifice of the dead (I think that’s why few families object to having their loved one’s name on the boots).
I don’t recall any comments about the Iraqi shoes, but I can’t imagine that seeing them didn’t have some effect on visitors.
Thank you, Helena, for your beautiful account of the DC exhibit.
“Davis”, I suspect you’re not a stupid person. I suspect you have the capacity to understand just how offensive it is to Muslims everywhere when you write somethng like, whenever somebody utters Allahu Akhbar, bad things happen.
To propagate anti-Muslim hate-speech of that kind is every bit as offensive as someone propagating hate speech about, for example, one religious or ethnic group controlling all the world’s finances and doing so in a dishonest fashion.
All such stereotypes are equally hurtful and equally harmful.
Why on earth do you do it?
yesterday in a court in Istanbul.
In December 1686, more than three hundred families converted to Islam in Salonika
“I wonder how many of those funerals George W. Bush went to?”
“We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans.”
G.W.Bush
“I am not a crook.”
Richard M. Nixon
WHY
I’m an Iraqi waiting to die
I don’t know when and I don’t know why.
I hear my death will have something to do
With a terror attack that was brought against you
By men who did not come from Iraq
Yours was a country we never attacked
Oh Helena is not sensitive about offending people. Too late for that, you do that every day of the week and I’ll be happy to post a brief racconto of your insensitive and biased speech.
The ones that should be most worried the most about the mutation of Islam that hijack the “God Is Great” mantra for criminal uses is the rest of Islam.
I know that many in the West have weak knees and would rather not antagonize these MFs with caricatures or what have you, but yesterday the moslem masses demonstrated in Turkey in favor od secular Turkey. Secular! That is clarity and guts beyond what you Helena and your chorus. Long live secular Turkey. Or can’t they belong in the middle east if they are secular?
The US did not pick the fight with Islam, Islam has this thing with humiliation and the fact the haven’t done jack since the fourteenth century. They make great terrorists but lousy soldiers, therefore that is what they will continue to do. S
Our loses are not a function of whether we fight them or not. We lost more people on 9/11 in one day than in three years in Iraq. Where are the boots of the 9/11 victims in that display Helena?
Actually they make pretty good soldiers, but given the depths of your ignorance you couldn’t be expected to know anything at all about that.
And as for 911, ever occur to you that maybe the government’s version of what happened isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be? Atta’s passport somehow surviving the crash into the tower and fluttering to the ground where it was “found”. Several of the “hijackers” alive and well. Wouldn’t want to cause you any cognitive dissonance…well, on reflection there’s nothing to worry about on that count.
people say the Iraq war is our Vietnam. I think it’s our Great Depression. The crux of the whole thing was “cakewalk” argument that was sold and bought by most of america. It was speculation based on nothing more than fantasy and ideology. The neo cons were the conservatives who not only spoke the corporatist language but were perceived as having knowledge about the middle east. They had very little. the “red state” muslims hated america as much as their leaders, despite what bernard Lewis said about the people being the opposite of the regime.
baseless speculation. everyone running to wher the so called geniuses told them to run too. It’s not the lying aobut pre war intel, we had that in 91 with the babies being ripped from incubators. it’s not human rights atrocities like abu graib, clinton and wesley Clarke famously “dropped bombs on white people” with impunity. i think clark even bombed a passenger train or something. it was the “cakewalk”
“We lost more people on 9/11 in one day than in three years in Iraq. Where are the boots of the 9/11 victims in that display Helena?”
Complete Rubbish