Release date: March 14, 2008
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Emory Groups to Mark 5th Anniversary of Iraq War With Vigil March 19

Members of the Emory University community who hold independent 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 Asbury lawn area between the Dobbs Center and Cox Hall off of Asbury Circle on the Emory campus, 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," says graduate student Laura Emiko Soltis, one of the organizers.

Soltis started "Fearless Fridays" at Emory last semester. The weekly noon vigil at Asbury Circle is part of the national Iraq Moratorium, a grassroots effort calling for an end to the war. Another weekly vigil group, STAND with ME (Members of Emory), meets every Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Cox Hall Bridge. The group currently is organized by Thee Smith, associate professor of religion, and was founded by Shalom Goldman, professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies.

The event is free and open to the public. Campus parking is available in the Fishburne deck, 1672 N. Decatur Road, or the Peavine lot, 27 Eagle Road. For more information, contact Thee Smith, 404-727-0636 or thee.smith@emory.edu.

Emory University (www.emory.edu) is one of the nation’s leading private research universities and a member of the Association of American Universities. Known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities, Emory is ranked as one of the country's top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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