Commemorating a grim anniversary

Names of dead soldiers read aloud

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE, PA - It took three hours and 50 minutes on March 20 to read the 3,990 names of the U.S. soldiers who had died in Iraq since 2003. By March 23, the total number of deaths had reached 4,000.

“This is a non-partisan event,” said Kathy Dodge, co-founder of WaynePeace, the group that sponsored the remembrance and who has been witnessing for peace since the war’s beginning. This was the fifth year of the readings.

“Some may feel that this is an anti-war event; it is not,” she said. “It’s a ceremony that says we should not forget what this war has done to many of our young men and women. People are going through their everyday lives not remembering that we are at war.”

Some at the reading said that it was a good thing that people learn about the horrors of war.

“People should be reminded of the consequences on soldiers whether you agree with the war or not,” said Melanie Henley-Heyn, a former Damascus resident who was visiting her parents from Vienna, Austria. “These experiences should be remembered as much as our victories.”

“It’s important to have clarity and it’s important to know about these results of war,” said Eric Snyder, a resident of Lake Ariel. “We should know what we are doing when we elect people who can send soldiers over there.”

The reading, which was originally scheduled to be held in Honesdale’s Central Park, was moved to the Grace Episcopal Church Hall due to the inclement weather.

The event came just days after Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, sponsored by Iraqi Veterans Against the War, had concluded. From March 13 to 16, soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan gave testimony in a location outside of Washington, DC to the crimes that they and other soldiers witnessed or committed when serving in the armed forces.

The event was patterned after the Winter Soldier Investigation held in 1971, when Vietnam War veterans ?including the future senator and Presidential candidate John Kerry?testified about the atrocities of that conflict. Many of the stories in both events challenged the morality and conduct of war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes.

This year’s event, which was broadcast by WJFF radio, was ignored by a large majority of the mainstream media. Visit www. ivaw.org for testimonies or more information.