http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/thehuman16.htm

(Published: July 16, 2004)

THE HUMAN COST OF WAR

By AMANDA LEHMERT

STAFF WRITER

FALMOUTH - The black boots stood at attention in perfect rows on the pavement in front of Mullen-Hall School.

Scuffed, unlaced and empty, they represented 882 American service members who died in the war in Iraq.

Nearby was a different display of footwear - three disheveled mounds of sneakers, slippers, heels and dress shoes meant to symbolize some of the thousands of Iraqi civilians who have also died in the conflict.

The traveling memorial, "Eyes Wide Open," was in Falmouth yesterday and will be in Chatham from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. today at the Unitarian Universalist Society Meetinghouse, on Route 28.

The memorial display was created by the American Friends Service Committee, a national Quaker organization opposed to the war. It has been traveling around the United States since 2003.

Organizer Noah Merrill said the exhibit is meant to highlight the human cost of war and memorialize the worth of all people in the conflict.

Yesterday in Falmouth, visitors waded through the rows of boots, which were donated by an Army-Navy surplus store in Chicago. The attendees whispered to each other the way one might in a cemetery.

Each boot was tagged with a soldier's name, age and home state.

"They were so young," said Falmouth resident Barbara Towers, who walked through the rows of boots with her friend Tracy Marks. "Sad. Very sad."

Massachusetts soldiers

The front row of boots had the names of Massachusetts soldiers. Boots tagged for John James Van Gyzen, 20, of Taunton were decorated with a white rose and his photo tied on with red, white and blue striped ribbon.

His family placed them there while the exhibit was in Taunton this week, shortly after they buried him. The rose had barely begun to wilt.

Next to the boots for Van Gyzen was a pair for Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Burgess, a Plymouth man whose family lives on the Cape.

In front of the boots were two large signs that listed the names of the dead on the other side. Each line listed an Iraqi civilian, sometimes unidentified, as well as their town, the day they died and how they were killed.

The names were provided by a British Group called Iraq Body Count, and the death toll is estimated between 11,000 and 13,000, Merrill said.

"It gave me chills in the wrong way," he said. "It's really something to wake up a few people to do something."

Ken Ramos, a leadership development coordinator for a program called YouthBuild, which takes unemployed young people and trains them in construction skills, came from New Bedford to see the display.

He was moved by the pile of shoes meant to represent thousands of Iraqi civilians. The shoes were surplus from a Quaker war relief program.

"When I look at that, I feel the holocaust," he said.

Ramos is a Vietnam War veteran who spent time in Saigon. The first Vietnam casualty from New Bedford was his friend.

"I never got to fight myself, but I could hear it at night. It was all around me," Ramos said.

Jay Hill, the director of veterans services in Falmouth, also spent time in the military - 30 years with the Air National Guard and four years in active duty.

He stopped by to say a prayer for the people who died.

"They were defending freedom. These boys died honorably defending human values," he said. "We're extremely lucky it hasn't happened to someone in Falmouth already."

Hill said the Iraqis killed in the war should be compared with the people killed under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Let's put the 2 million shoes (of people) he massacred in here," he said. "Let's compare apples to apples."