When the war in Iraq started, I decided to keep the names of all the Americans who died in this ill-begotten, pre-emptive war on a poster board for our peace group. In the beginning, silly me thought that one-half of a poster board would probably be sufficient. So, on April 4, 2003, as I spoke to the press outside the University of Wyoming Union while Laramie's Stand Up for Peace waged a die-in:
the half-board of names made its first public appearance:
It soon became clear that this was unworkable and, today, I will add panel 14 to the set, a set that has now grown so large I will soon need to put the main sections of it in our storage shed.
People sometimes ask me why I decided to do this and, if truth be told, had I known how long this horrific war would last and had I understood that I would not be adding a hundred or so name but thousands, I probably would not have even begun. Now, sometimes, when I mention how depressing it can be to keep this memorial, some have suggested that I just quit. But I ask you -- how can I? How could I justify a decision that says everyone who died up to, and including COURTNEY T. JOHNSON was worth remembering but everyone after is not?
The truth is, I can't. I made a commitment to do this back in March 2003 and while I didn't understand then what that commitment would entail, the commitment has been made and it will be kept, even if that means that the boards will eventually number 20 or 30 or 50. Once begun, there is no legitimate way of stopping it.
For three years after the war began, our group tabled every week at the University of Wyoming. (As an off-campus group, we required a sponsor and last year, when our sponsor graduated, we lost that luxury.) Sometimes, we had two tables for all our literature, buttons, stickers, etc.
But, usually, we got only one and that eventually meant that we had to stop bringing the full board and display only the most recent three boards. Although that worked, I remember one day when the cousin of Chance R. Phelps, a Wyoming native who was among the first casualties, stopped by and was disappointed to discover that we no longer displayed panel one.
Anyone on the board with Wyoming ties gets their name recorded in black overwritten in red to make them easier to identify:
Each panel also has a beginning and an ending date at the top of the board.
Since the board is kept in "real time," the names from those early days capture events such as the missing and POW soldiers, along with their eventual fates:
Notations next to some names remember particularly large losses of life, like the victims of an early helicopter crash:
And other names appear on more than one board as their fate remains unresolved and their status and rank are changed:
One of the joys of keeping this board is that we decide who deserves to be on it. We include all the names we find of those who committe suicide, along with the names of a couple of returned soldiers who committed suicide by cop. In early 2004, a soldier just back from Iraq murdered his wife, her lover, and himself -- all three are on the board. The saddest "extra" person included on our board is the mother of a soldier who received the military men who came to tell her that her son had been killed and then, without saying a word and leaving them standing at her door, she turned, walked upstairs and crawled into bed. She didn't utter a word or leave her bed for three straight days. That morning, her husband found her lying in bed, dead. The coroner who conducted the autopsy of this apparently healthy 40-something woman found no biological cause for her death and recorded that she died of a broken heart. She was cremated and half of her ashes were placed in an urn, in the arms of her son, in his casket. The other half were spread over his casket before his grave was filled.
In 2005, when MoveOn called a special vigil to support Cindy Sheehan, we took the board, in individual panels, to our vigil. One of my favorite shots is this little girl, appropriately named Destiny, holding a panel:
In the early years, the memorial board went to our Sunday night vigils where I would hold it. When it came time to add the second panel, some people suggested I add it to the bottom to make it easier to hold. My husband, thinking more clearly, warned against that: "What if you have to add a third and a fourth panel?" I scoffed, thinking that couldn't possibly happen. And now I'm ready for board 14.
The memorial board has been displayed at poetry readings and movie showings and a member who is a WWII vet used them last summer when he spent his 80th birthday sitting outside the courthouse raising money for cameras and phone cards for the troops. But, these days, the board doesn't get out much. Large and unwieldy, it simply doesn't lend itself to easy display. But every 4th of July, Laramie has a big community bash and we always take the boards for our booth. This year, it wrapped almost all the way around:
(This is the first time I've really looked at this photo and the most fascinating thing about it is that virtually everyone you can see in the photo -- except my neighbor who's kneeling talking to me at the booth -- everyone else is looking at the board.
The board had a magnetic draw on those who walked through the park, enjoying the beautiful summer day. Many stopped to look at it and read the names, even though they may have disagreed with our position on the war. Some of them, of course, were not shy about letting us know those views. One guy carefully read through about 1/4 of the names and when I said to him, "They're pretty sobering, aren't they?" he replied, "Yes. So you support the war?" "No," I said, "we oppose the war." At that, he walked away. I suppose the names only mattered to him if they were displayed by war boosters.
Another guy walked up to the table and harrumphed at the names. "How many?" he asked. "Nearing 3600," I told him. "Well," he said, "I'll pay attention when we reach 58,000." A cold, cold heart.
One woman walked up and told us that it was too bad about all those who had been killed. "But," she continued, "I'm more concerned about all those we've saved. Why don't you put their names on a sign?" How can you respond to such thinking?
But the most meaningful encounter came late in the day. A young man with his very young son approached the table and began reading the names very methodically from the beginning. I watched but did not try to engage him. Then, when he reached a certain point, he knelt down and began talking to his young son. I knew that he had found someone he knew so I went around the table and approached him. "Did you find someone you know?" I asked. "Yes," he said, a catch in his voice. He pointed at three names on the board and said them out loud. "Those were my buddies. I was standing right next to them when the IED went off." He began to tell me, and his son, more about that day but then his cell phone went off and he walked off to take the call.
That single encounter justifies every moment spent keeping this board and dispels any doubts I ever had about whether it is worth the effort. To see the look on that guy's face, to know that my board opened up at least a moment for him to talk to his son about his war experiences, to know that he got that chance to remember his buddies, that makes it worth every bit of energy I have expended.
And so, today, let's remember all those people whose lives will be forever altered by names we remember today.
Pfc. Christopher D. Kube, 18, of Sterling Heights, Mich
Spc. Robert D. Varga, 24, of Monroe City, Mo.