112,000 flag memorial on U. of Oregon campus commemorates war dead

"3,000 red flags represent the 3,055 American soldiers who have died in the war in Iraq," the signs say. "While 77 Oregonian soldiers have died in Iraq, 150 have returned to become students at the UO."

--snip--

The 112,000 white flags represent the dead Iraqi soldiers and citizens, the estimates of which range from 55,000 to 655,000 since the 2003 invasion.

"It is a political statement," says Zach Basaraba, a UO sophomore and co-director of the Survival Center, which is sponsoring the memorial. "Not in the sense of 'Hey, is this war good or bad?' But in the sense that we need to be involved in the discussion.

--snip--

I see a young man in a black cowboy hat looking at the red flags. His eyes are watery. What, I ask, do you see in all this?

"Faces," he says. "Faces of my friends."

He says he's a soldier who's served two stints with the Army in Iraq and lost seven friends in the war. (The Army, he says, forbids his name to be used in the paper.)

"The old quote is right," he says. "War is hell."

--snip--