The Hillside

[miss_arel]

Months ago, a small group of people in my hometown got together to put together a memorial for now 3000 troops who've died in Iraq. The memorial consists of thousands of white wooden crosses arranged on a hillside that's prominent and visible from the freeway, with a banner keeping count of the number of dead. Some local families have 'adopted'

Comments

[theleaningelm]

I'm sorry that the protesters were there, and I'm proud that you guys stood strong nonetheless. Kudos to you!

[miss_arel]

Thanks!

There was one incident when the protesters started chanting "Shame on you! Shamne on you!" and some of the counter-protesters chanted "Shame on BUSH! Shame on BUSH!" to drown them out. Even though the vigil wasn't supposed to be a political rally per se, it kinda made me happy when they did that.

[miss_arel]

Well, I did my best. ^^ Mostly I'm just happy that there's so much more pro-peace than pro-war sentiment in my little (mostly white, upper-middle-class, historically conservative) hometown. Makes me proud.

[irishninja]

Hurray for you for going to the vigil! :D

Boo on those meanies for being jerks! >:(

[miss_arel]

<^v^> *happy fluff* Thank you. I'm glad I went.

[miss_arel]

Well, a lot of people have died. I think that's rather the point of the memorial. It's one thing to read a number in the paper, and another to actually look at 3,000 crosses and realize just how many human beings that represents. It makes an abstraction no longer abstract.

I wasn't aware that they'd been using names of the dead without permission, but if that's the case, I'm glad that they're no longer doing that, because I agree,that's a fairly disrespectful thing to do.

Huh. Where does your dad work? Were they protesting his office? XD