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March 17, 2008
Ceremony to mark fifth year of Iraq war

By carol clark

University groups that hold regular campus vigils over the Iraq war will join forces to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of the country on Wednesday, March 19, from noon to 2 p.m. The event, set for the grassy area between the Dobbs University Center and Cox Hall, will feature Korean drumming, taps and a reading of the names of the nearly 4,000 U.S. service people and the many thousand more Iraqi citizens who have died in the war.

“The anniversary also marks the half-trillion dollar mark for the cost of this war, and we will be creating a visual display of [these numbers] to inform citizens on campus,” said Laura Emiko Soltis, one of the organizers.

A graduate student in the Institute of Liberal Arts, Soltis started “Fearless Fridays” at Emory last semester. The weekly noon vigil at Asbury Circle is part of the national Iraq Moratorium effort. STAND with ME (Members of Emory), founded by Shalom Goldman, professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, and organized by Thee Smith, associate professor of religion, meets every Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Cox Hall Bridge. Both vigils are sponsored by the Department of Religion.

“The term ‘fearless’ means not being afraid to ask questions,” Soltis says of her group. “One of our goals is for Emory to have a more public and official program on the war. We have a lot of public discussions about race and class on campus, but not about a war we’ve been engaged in for five years.”