| Dawn Turner Trice |
Symbols bring toll of Iraq war closer to home
Published May 28, 2007 When telling the story of the Iraq war's death toll, visuals often can help us wrap our minds around it.
In January 2004, nearly a year after the war started, the Chicago-based American Friends Service Committee set up a display of more than 500 pairs of combat boots in Federal Plaza. That was one pair of boots for every U.S. soldier who had been killed so far in the Iraq war.
A few months later, a northwest suburban Barrington man created his own display. By September 2004, he had planted about 1,030 American flags in front of his downtown Barrington business to represent the number of soldiers who had died in the war. I was there for a Sunday anti-war march through town.
Since then, groups around the city and the country have found other symbolic ways to show this growing membership into this dreadful club. They've planted crosses in the sand along beaches. They've lit candles. They've erected walls with the names of fallen soldiers, as well as the names of a fraction of the Iraqi civilian dead.
On Thursday, in time for Memorial Day weekend, American Friends set up yet another display using combat boots. (Since 2004, the display has traveled the country.) But this time, on its return trip to Chicago, there was not enough room in the plaza. So they turned to Grant Park, arranging more than 3,450 pairs -- with new boots being added over the weekend -- tagged with the names of servicemen and servicewomen.
We need the visuals. We need to see this. Especially since we don't get to see the flag-draped coffins returning home. The visuals help those of us who don't have a relative or a friend serving in Iraq or Afghanistan get a real feel for the numbers.
But there are some people who don't need such help. People such as North Sider Katy Scott, a hospice chaplain and longtime peace activist. Scott's son joined the Army in 2002, two years after graduating from Loyola University. She was passionate about him not joining, but she couldn't talk him out of it.
She began giving lectures about the insanity of this war and ministering to parents who had lost their sons and daughters in Iraq. She pulled out her Vietnam War beads and joined the anti-war demonstrations around the city, including the protest that accompanied the first set of boots placed out in Federal Plaza.
Her son went to Iraq in January 2005. He was injured on Oct. 14, 2005, in a roadside bombing near Samara. He returned to the States minus his right arm below the elbow; minus the sight in his right eye; and with myriad other injuries that kept him hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a year and three weeks. His mother was by his bedside for about eight months.
"To me America treats this as a football game," Scott told me a couple of days before she spoke at a weekend ceremony in Grant Park amid the boots.
"It started out rah, rah, rah ... but now the team is not winning. I think a lot of America has turned their backs on 'a losing team' and they don't want to deal with it -- the wounded, the dead. They think: 'I just want to go to my barbecue. I don't want to deal with the reality.'"
She said that when we talk about the costs of war, there are many different costs that are harder to quantify.
Now she and her son are estranged, she said, because he doesn't believe she can support him and speak out against the war.
"None of this is counted in the overall toll," Scott said. "It's all couched in terms of patriotic sacrifice. But this is actually grinding up another generation of men and women."
In the meantime, the toll continues to rise. We can count the number of dead and wounded, but there's so much more about the toll of war that defies quantifying.
"As a hospice chaplain, I see suffering from disease and old age every day," Scott said. "The one thing I know is that life is precious and should never be taken in war."
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dtrice@tribune.com
In January 2004, nearly a year after the war started, the Chicago-based American Friends Service Committee set up a display of more than 500 pairs of combat boots in Federal Plaza. That was one pair of boots for every U.S. soldier who had been killed so far in the Iraq war.
A few months later, a northwest suburban Barrington man created his own display. By September 2004, he had planted about 1,030 American flags in front of his downtown Barrington business to represent the number of soldiers who had died in the war. I was there for a Sunday anti-war march through town.
Since then, groups around the city and the country have found other symbolic ways to show this growing membership into this dreadful club. They've planted crosses in the sand along beaches. They've lit candles. They've erected walls with the names of fallen soldiers, as well as the names of a fraction of the Iraqi civilian dead.
On Thursday, in time for Memorial Day weekend, American Friends set up yet another display using combat boots. (Since 2004, the display has traveled the country.) But this time, on its return trip to Chicago, there was not enough room in the plaza. So they turned to Grant Park, arranging more than 3,450 pairs -- with new boots being added over the weekend -- tagged with the names of servicemen and servicewomen.
We need the visuals. We need to see this. Especially since we don't get to see the flag-draped coffins returning home. The visuals help those of us who don't have a relative or a friend serving in Iraq or Afghanistan get a real feel for the numbers.
But there are some people who don't need such help. People such as North Sider Katy Scott, a hospice chaplain and longtime peace activist. Scott's son joined the Army in 2002, two years after graduating from Loyola University. She was passionate about him not joining, but she couldn't talk him out of it.
She began giving lectures about the insanity of this war and ministering to parents who had lost their sons and daughters in Iraq. She pulled out her Vietnam War beads and joined the anti-war demonstrations around the city, including the protest that accompanied the first set of boots placed out in Federal Plaza.
Her son went to Iraq in January 2005. He was injured on Oct. 14, 2005, in a roadside bombing near Samara. He returned to the States minus his right arm below the elbow; minus the sight in his right eye; and with myriad other injuries that kept him hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a year and three weeks. His mother was by his bedside for about eight months.
"To me America treats this as a football game," Scott told me a couple of days before she spoke at a weekend ceremony in Grant Park amid the boots.
"It started out rah, rah, rah ... but now the team is not winning. I think a lot of America has turned their backs on 'a losing team' and they don't want to deal with it -- the wounded, the dead. They think: 'I just want to go to my barbecue. I don't want to deal with the reality.'"
She said that when we talk about the costs of war, there are many different costs that are harder to quantify.
Now she and her son are estranged, she said, because he doesn't believe she can support him and speak out against the war.
"None of this is counted in the overall toll," Scott said. "It's all couched in terms of patriotic sacrifice. But this is actually grinding up another generation of men and women."
In the meantime, the toll continues to rise. We can count the number of dead and wounded, but there's so much more about the toll of war that defies quantifying.
"As a hospice chaplain, I see suffering from disease and old age every day," Scott said. "The one thing I know is that life is precious and should never be taken in war."
----------
dtrice@tribune.com
