The North Dakota Peace Coalition will hold a candlelight vigil tonight to honor soldiers and civilians killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to support the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
The vigil at the intersection of South Washington Street and DeMers Avenue is one of several events the Peace Coalition has planned today in cooperation with the UND Peace Studies program to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
The groups also are sponsoring an exhibit titled "The Human Cost of the War" from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the UND Memorial Union, on the first floor near the coffee shop. The exhibit includes films on the war and displays that detail the war's financial cost, numbers of military and civilian casualties and the mental health effects on returning soldiers.
"We're very detached from this (war)," said Candace Anderson, a Grand Forks representative of the Peace Coalition. "We don't really get a full understanding of what it's like to be over there and have people in your country or to be in the other country and dealing with another culture."
Another element of the exhibit is what the Peace Coalition calls an eyes-wide-open display: a display of 10 pairs of military boots and 50 pairs of civilian shoes. Each pair of boots will represent 320 soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, Anderson said. She said each pair of shoes will represent about 1,200 civilians who have died in the war.
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The number of civilian casualties in Iraq is difficult to pin down. Estimates range from about 60,000 dead, reported by the independent, London-based group Iraq Body Count, to several 100,000 reported in other sources.
"This is the fourth anniversary," Anderson said. "You may hear that in the media over and over again, but it doesn't really take hold. We want to create something visual to make it stand out for people, to make them more aware of what's going on and to know they have a role in it."
The Peace Coalition supports ending the Iraq war, but Anderson said she hopes war supporters also will come to see the exhibit.
"Obviously, everyone has a different opinion," she said. "It's not just a black-and-white issue. We want to encourage discussion. If something's not nice, people don't want to talk about it - especially in North Dakota. But we have thousands of lives on the line, and that's something we do need to talk about in the community in an open and respectful way."
The Peace Coalition also is organizing a letter-writing campaign to urge Congress to support a troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Anderson said the group planned events for today - rather than Monday, when the war actually began four years ago - because UND students return from Spring Break on Monday, and they wanted to be sure there was sufficient time to spread word of the event.
