At 8 p.m. Thursday, more than 100 people gathered near Brightleaf Square in downtown Durham, candles in hand, imposing an austere silence on the popular destination.
These Durham residents standing on the corners of Main and Gregson streets were among tens of thousands of people across the country participating in silent candlelight vigils to honor soldiers killed in Iraq, whose numbers swelled past the 1,000 mark this week.
Several Duke graduate students and at least one Duke professor were among the crowd. Jack Bookman, associate professor of the practice of mathematics, said he came to the vigil because “1,000 young people died for no reason.” Stephen Shepherd, a neurobiology research assistant? graduate student, and Elizabeth Bigger, a fourth-year medical student, said they were mourning the deaths of both Americans and Iraqis killed in the war, a sentiment echoed by many people attending the vigil.
“Nationality does not determine the sacredness of life,” Durham resident Alice Hall said. “That Iraqi lives are lost is just as horrific as the fact that Americans were killed.”
Connie Stafford, who was in town from Colorado visiting her friend Susan Holder, served with the Air Force during Operation Desert Storm fixing military aircraft at a base in England. Stafford said she could not imagine being in the armed forces during the current conflict.
“It’s hard enough when you sign up and give your allegiance to whatever the commander in chief proposes when you agree with him,” Stafford said. “But when you’re not be behind the decisions, and when I think of people blindly going to war, it just breaks my heart.... Any number of people killed there is too many, but 1,000 is just way too much.”
The event attracted many generations of people. Durham residents Ron and Chris Greene could not help but draw comparisons to World War II. “I can remember World War II, when war was honorable,” Ron Greene said. “That war was not only honorable, but also necessary.”
Ron Greene was 17 years old at the end of World War II, just missing the last draft for the war.
“It’s such a waste, all those young lives being lost,” said Ron’s wife Chris Greene, who brought an American flag “to show patriotism.”
Although most people attending the vigil carried signs like “No end in sight” and “How many more,” the vigil was not meant to be partisan, said Adam Sampieri, a Durham school teacher and Trinity ’03 graduate who sent out e-mails to help boost the event’s attendance.
“Tonight really has nothing to do with politics. It’s about people on either side of the issue honoring the soldiers who’ve died,” Sampieri said. “But if you polled people here, they’d probably fall on a certain side of the fence.”
As of Tuesday, 1,003 Americans had been killed in Iraq. All but 138 of the American deaths came after May 1, 2003, when Bush declared an end to most combat operations, The New York Times reported. Most estimates of the total Iraqi death toll place it at least 10 times greater than the American figure.
Although most people attending the vigil did not have any relatives serving in Iraq, most had some connection to the war through neighbors, friends or coworkers.
“I have friends in Iraq,” Sampieri said. “I think everybody knows someone somehow, who’s been there and come back, or is there now—or didn’t come back.”
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