Students memorialize 3,351
Chalkers honor fallen soldiers for a variety of reasons
Members of Young Democrats and Delta Force, representatives from the Ecumenical Christian Ministries and other students helped write the name of each of the 3,351 soldiers killed in the Iraq War.
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
Photo by Lisa Lipovac
Tim Stauffer, Iola senior, writes names of U.S. soldiers who have died during the war in Iraq. The Young Democrates undertook the project of displaying the names of all 3,351 soldiers who have fallen to raise awareness of the war.
A couple dozen students were up late Monday night sidewalk chalking in front of Strong Hall — not to promote bands or drink specials — but instead to memorialize each of the 3,351 soldiers killed in the Iraq War.
Today is the four-year anniversary of the day in 2003 when President Bush stood in front of a banner that read, “Mission Accomplished,” marking the cessation of hostile activity in Iraq.
Members of Young Democrats, Delta Force, representatives from the Ecumenical Christian Ministries and other students helped write every name of every fallen soldier.
“We’re trying to make it as apolitical as possible,” said Julia Groeblacher, McPherson freshman and president of Young Democrats. “We don’t want to make it a political event but an American event.”
Groeblacher said she got the idea for the event from Young Democrats at Ohio State University who created similar memorials. She used a casualty count from an official release from the Department of Defense on the Web site icasualties.org for the 3,351 soldiers for the memorial.
One event similar to this occurred in the fall of 2004 at the University when Ethan Nuss, a junior at the time, posted pictures of every fallen soldier on wooden stakes in the Strong Hall lawn.
Nuss, who graduated from the University in 2006 and now works as the national campus coordinator for 2020 Vision, which holds events promoting alternative energies, said there was another key difference between his event in 2004 and the event today: He said he was only memorializing 1,061 fallen soldiers in 2004.
“It seemed like a large number at the time and now we’re three times that,” Nuss said.
Nuss, who now lives in Washington, D.C., came to Lawrence Sunday to promote 2020 Vision and is staying until Thursday, giving him plenty of time to see the new memorial, he said.
One event similar to this occurred in the fall of 2004 at the University when Ethan Nuss, a junior at the time, posted pictures of every fallen soldier on wooden stakes in the Strong Hall lawn.
“I think it’s good to continue to do things like that because unfortunately we don’t see how it all adds up like that except when it’s a large milestone like another 1,000 soldiers,” he said.
Chris Verbeck, Weston, Mo., junior, also chalked Monday night. He heard about the memorial as a member of Delta Force, but he said he had an added interest in writing because he knew a soldier who died in Iraq.
He said the soldier, Colby Farnan, was from his small community and his death had a drastic impact on the town. Verbeck said he’d like to write Farnan’s name in the memorial.
Unlike Groeblacher, Verbeck said the memorial is politically based for him.
“There are all of these deaths and nothing successful is being carried out to bring home our troops,” he said.
Another chalker, Sonia Marcinkowski, Blue Springs, Mo., junior, said she thought it was odd how quickly people responded when 33 people died in the Virginia Tech shootings, and yet they don’t think about how many Americans have died in the war. She said writing out the names in the memorial would show the cost of war.
“It could take a very long time and I think it’s important to honor every one of them,” Marcinkowski said.
Kansan staff writer Tyler Harbert can be contacted at tharbert@kansan.com.
— Edited by Joe Caponio
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