Crosses all over the boulevard

Late last year, some peace activists put a sign on the hillside above the Lafayette BART station to honor the US soldiers killed in Iraq. The sign read "In memory of the XXXX U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq" along with an updated count of the death toll. Initially, they had a few hundred crosses as symbols of the conflict, but for the last few weekends, volunteers have been erecting crosses (plus a few Jewish stars of David, Muslim crescents, and Buddhist wheels of life -- not sure how they know each fallen soldier's religious persuasion) feverishly, hoping to eventually have one for each fallen soldier. The current death toll is 3254 and counting and the whole hillside is full of crosses. And they add more crosses each weekend. This cellular photo from a train window doesn't do justice to the actual visual experience of this memorial.

I pass the memorial twice each day on my daily commute, and it's a somber reminder of the costs of this war. It's visible from the BART line and Highway 24, so there are lots of other people who see these crosses every day. Like most outlying suburban area, Contra Costa County leans a little more to the right politically than the rest of the SF Bay Area, probably deep magenta on the national blue/red spectrum. If the memorial were in San Francisco or Berkeley, it would mostly be "preaching to the converted", but putting it in Lafayette sends a much stronger message. Many people who pass the memorial probably think that the crosses disrespect the honor of the soldiers, and the site has been vandalized a few times, but it's probably also opened a lot of eyes that wouldn't have been opened otherwise.

Each cross, star, crescent, or wheel represents a person. A dead person who used to be alive. Lately I've been hanging my head averting my eyes as the BART train rolls through Lafayette, since seeing all those crosses puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. But today my portable music player decided to play Jose Gonzalez's "Crosses" as the train pulled into Lafayette station, and I looked left at thousands of crosses on the hill. And now I'm in a bad mood. How many more crosses will it take?

Jose Gonzalez - Crosses (mp3 from music is art)