Home > US display marks 1,500 war dead
Edito Wars and conflicts International USA
Portraits of nearly all of the 1,500 US troops killed in Iraq are going on display at a New York state university.
The pictures, mostly painted by art students, stare down from a 60m (200ft) wall at Syracuse University.
"It’s not about the war or politics. It’s about these people who have given their lives," said Stephen Zaima, a professor at the university.
According to AP news agency, the number of US servicemen and women killed in Iraq reached 1,500 on Thursday.
However, domestic US support for the war appears to have been buoyed by the success of Iraq’s elections in January.
A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday said 53% felt efforts to bring order to Iraq were going well, up from 41% a month ago.
The 1500th US casualty was a marine killed by insurgents in Babil province, just south of Baghdad, on Wednesday, AP reported.
AP said its tally of 1,500 included 1,140 who had died as a result of hostile action.
It said 1,362 military personnel had died since 1 May 2003, when US President George W Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The tally matched those calculated by CNN and the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website.
The US military releases its own total only occasionally.
Grey panels
The New York exhibition, called To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen, includes portraits of 1,483 American service personnel.
The 13cm x 18cm (5in x 7in) images have been created using pencil, ink, oils, water colours, prints, and computer design.
The images are based mainly on internet photographs.
Some of the exhibition’s panels have been left grey, where there was no photo available on which to base a painting.
One of the artists, Elena Peteva, a graduate student from Sofia, Bulgaria, said her subject, naval officer John D House, died in a helicopter crash a month after his son was born on Christmas Eve.
"He had warm, understanding eyes and a very sweet expression. I know he would have made a good father," she said.
Forum posts
5 March 2005, 06:06
They deserve it!
5 March 2005, 06:26
All military people need to ask themselves....isn’t there another way for me to make a living? Isn’t there a better way to get some money? Isn’t killing innocent people just murder? Isn’t an education possible through student loans or other help? Isn’t phony wars harming our country? Do values really include doing the dirty work of the big war machines who make gazillions on death and destruction? Isn’t it time for the people of the world to find ways to share the planet that do not include killing each other for resources and land?
7 March 2005, 04:16
thats a very callous remark!! no-one deserves to die for some phony war, not innocent civilians in afghanistan or iraq nor soldiers duped into going to fight someone’s oil wars.
6 March 2005, 09:21
Wonder what it is like to kill other human beings for a "living"?
7 March 2005, 08:38
Really, who cares about people who are so stupid that they would believe themselves heros for going into a phony war and killing innocent people. Why should anyone care about them?
10 March 2005, 21:44
To many millions of Americans the war is quiet real and not in any way phoney.
These many millions also appreciate and celebrate the hero; the dead; the kill.
Once in a great while, a chance event occurs where things change to the opposite, take for instance that lady, Cindy Sheehan [sp?] and her son Casey. His death changed her mindset to the opposite. Had he not died, she, among others, like the millions of Americans would have seen his killing Iraqis as "Heroic".