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BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
bwilliams@nwitimes.com
219.462.5151 | Sunday, November 13, 2005 | (No comments posted.)
VALPARAISO | Pink canvas sneakers of a 4-month-old and brown wing tips of a 66-year-old.
A toddler's black patent leathers and a preschooler's red rubber sandals.
A young woman's magenta pumps and a young man's blue Nike running shoes.
And hundreds of boots -- black and brown, leather and canvas, scuffed and shined.
The shoes arrayed across the floor of a large hall in the Valparaiso University library on Saturday seemed to speak louder than the observers who moved slowly among them.
Part of the display Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War, organized by the Northwest Indiana Coalition Against the Iraq War, are the 309 pairs of name-tagged combat boots which represent National Guard soldiers killed in Iraq. Garnered from military surplus, they were not the actual boots worn by the named soldier, organizer Nick Egnatz said.
The 20 pairs of civilian shoes, however, were actual shoes worn by some of the estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have died in the fighting, Egnatz said.
For Valparaiso resident Richard Herr, the exhibit reinforced his anti-war feelings
"We as a society need a better way. This just can't be the way to run society, with going out and killing people like this," said Herr, 66, who served as an Air Force mechanic in Thailand during the Vietnam War.
"You'd have thought we'd have learned one thing from the two wars in Europe and in Vietnam."
But for Rachel DeWitt, a college student from Indianapolis who was visiting VU, the exhibit was a way of honoring the fallen.
A member of the Army National Guard, DeWitt, 20, said the exhibit hit home.
"I have a pair of boots just the same. What if I get deployed? What if my boots come home the same way?" she said.
"I love serving my country, but it's (sad) to know so many people have to die for the price of freedom."
VU professor Tricia White was moved to tears, wondering how the soldiers died and whether they had children.
"What have these boots seen?"
White said the country was misled into war and the display was more effective as a way to pay respect than to honor.
"Do you have to die to be honored?" she said.
VU staff member Kimberly Jana was struck by how similar the Iraqi footwear is to what Americans wear. A 5-year-old's white shoes with flowers on the front were eerily similar to those of the flower girl in her wedding, she said.
The display was in conjunction with the university's annual peace and justice symposium.
If you go
Eyes Wide Open
Continues today
11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Highway of the Flags Veterans Memorial
Indianapolis Boulevard and Ridge Road
Highland
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