Grant Park - "Eyes Wide Open"

As we walked Grant Park heading to Millennium Park, we came upon the "Eyes Wide Open" display of 3452 pairs of combat boots, a vivid and moving graphic representation of the magnitude of our country's loss as well as the enormity of each family's personal loss, because each pair of boots had a lost soldier's name and home town attached. Many of the affected families had found their soldier's boots and added small mementoes, memorabilia, and even biographies of the dead. This display is touring the country and the schedule is available on their website listed below.




"The American Friends Service Committee, as a Quaker and pacifist organization, stands against all wars as a way to resolve global conflicts. But we believe it is crucial, particularly this Memorial Day, for this nation to remember the sacrifice of those killed in the Iraq War, while at the same time condemning the war that took their lives.

Equally important, this nation must see with their eyes wide open, the human cost of this war, so that never again will we blindly vote for war. We began this memorial in January 2004, just after the 500th US combat death. Today, we come back to Chicago, its birthplace, with a memorial, tragically, seven times larger than when we began." Eyes Wide Open website