Traveling exhibit of empty boots symbolizes lives lost to war -Seattle

[Rose Siding]

After Joe Blickenstaff died in Iraq, his older brother inherited his Army-issued, sand-colored boots. They didn't hold up well in Washington's rain and cold, and they were too small, but Blickenstaff's brother wore them anyway.

"You do strange things when you miss someone," said their sister, Stacy Livingston.

For her, the boots were a powerful symbol of a beloved life cut short and a reason she plans to speak at an exhibit that uses that power to illustrate the horror of war.

Today, the traveling exhibit "Eyes Wide Open," of roughly 3,000 empty combat boots and civilian shoes, makes its way to Seattle Center for a two-day run.

Started by the Quaker group American Friends Service Committee, the exhibit began in January 2004 with 500 boots in Chicago, as a "way to put a human face on the losses of the Iraq war," said Susan Segall, regional director of the American Friends Service Committee in the Pacific Northwest.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/219493_boots09.html

(not comparing the magnitude, of course, but for me...) The room full of shoes in the Holocaust Museum made the personification of the lost most real.