Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee’s widely-accalimed exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq War, features a pair of boots honoring each U.S. military casualty and a field of shoes to memoralize the Iraqis killed in the conflict.  Eyes Wide Open has toured to over 100 cities across the U.S. and has been visited by hundreds of thousands of people. 

In January 2004, Eyes Wide Open was displayed for the first time in Federal Plaza with 504 pairs of boots symbolizing the lost lives of U.S. soliders in Iraq.  With each passing week, each stop in a new city, more pairs of boots have been added to represent the newly fallen.

Now the exhibit includes more than 3,452 pairs of boots.

This opening event features speakers who have had personal experience with the human cost: an Iraqi, an Iraq vet, and a mother who lost her son to the war.

Recorded Thursday, May 24, 2007 at Grant Park.