As of Sunday, May 22, 1,622 Americans were killed in the war in Iraq. For a group of Union students and faculty, this number is something they believed needed to be turned into a visual. As a result, they erected plywood markers – 12 inches by four inches – containing the name, age and date of those killed. The markers line the pathways in the center of campus.
Campus Action, the group that spearheaded the project, worked for hours writing on the markers and putting them in the ground.
Sophomore Ian Kennedy said the project is not intended to be a political statement of any sort, merely a reminder of the war's toll and a memorial to those who have died. “This brings to the forefront, in a comprehensible way, the actual number of servicemen and women who have died,” said Kennedy, who is from Woodstock, Vt. “Beyond that, people viewing the display can make their own judgments based on the reality of these numbers.”
The group downloaded the names of the dead soldiers from a Web site – www.fallenheroesmemorial.com – which in turn got the names from the Department of Defense. On the Web site, each name is followed by a short biography describing where the soldier was from and how he or she died.
On Sept. 11, 2002, the Union College community placed some 3,000 flags on the campus green in memory of those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The current display will be taken down on Thursday, May 26.