The Rocket

Issue date: 4/27/07 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Nathan Collins President Robert Smith, left, and Sharon Sykora, an associate professor of political science, discuss the "Eyes Wide Open"exhibit in the Quad Tuesday afternoon. The exhibit featured 160 pairs of boots memorializing the Pennsylvania soldiers killed during the war in Iraq. [Click to enlarge]

Since March 2003, the war in Iraq has dominated the news. On an almost daily basis, television and newspapers report the latest deadly attacks and the number of soldiers and civilians killed. This constant bombardment of statistics has desensitized many Americans to the fact that human beings are being killed in large numbers.

With this in mind, the American Friends Service Committee created "Eyes Wide Open," a national exhibit memorializing those who have been killed and illustrating the human cost of war. The state exhibit, "Eyes Wide Open Across Pennsylvania," came to SRU on Tuesday and Wednesday. The exhibit currently features 160 pairs of boots, each representing a Pennsylvanian soldier killed in Iraq. The number of boots grows as the exhibit travels, with the most recent addition coming in the form of a picture of a pair of boots with the caption, "Pennsylvania service person killed April 2007, Name not yet released."

There is also a portion of the display with 50 pairs of civilian shoes, ranging in size from infant to adult, representing a small fraction of the Iraqi civilian casualties.

"Eyes Wide Open" was brought to campus with the help of Sharon Sykora and Mark Daniels, an associate professor and professor in SRU's political science department, respectively.

Sykora said she was fearful of a negative response to the exhibit, but felt it would be a good way to educate students and remind them of what is going on.

Continued...

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