Eyes Wide Open: Military Families Speak Out

Eyes Wide Open: Military Families Speak Out
AFSC/file
Eyes Wide Open: Military Families Speak Out
AFSC/file

Eyes Wide Open: Military Families Speak Out

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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.

The program includes the voices of those touched by this war - Gold Star Families Speak Out members whose loved ones died as a result of the war in Iraq; Military Families Speak Out members whose loved ones are currently deployed, soon to deploy, or have returned from Iraq physically and/or psychologically damaged; members of Iraq Veterans Against the War who have served in Iraq; members of Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War who have served in other conflicts; and active duty troops who are participants of the Appeal for Redress project and have contacted their Member of Congress requesting an end to the war in Iraq.

Recorded Saturday, May 26, 2007 at Grant Park.