'A memorial and a message for peace'

NORTON--Sixty-five strings of paper cranes dangle from the balcony of the Balfour-Hood Atrium. Colorful and bright, they represent a grim reality--the 3,218 American lives lost in Iraq since the beginning of the war four years ago.

Members of the Wheaton community, led by the College Democrats and the Progressive Activists Coalition, spent nearly three weeks in March folding and stringing the cranes--one for every soldier killed--to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003. The mounting of the crane display coincided with a week of protests and demonstrations across the country. (Pictured, left to right: Beth Markens '09, Alice Kellogg '07, Martha Cornwell '08, Deen Vereene Parnell and Galen Kerrick '09.)

In previous years, Wheaton student activists have planted wooden crosses in the Dimple to mark the war's anniversary, but that project ''was controversial, and it generated some negative reactions,'' said Alice Kellogg '07, a project organizer. ''The crane is a non-controversial image that symbolizes peace. There's not as much of a political bent to it.''

While a core group of about six students spearheaded the project, about 40 people participated in the crane folding, including Vereene Parnell, associate dean of service, spirituality and social responsibility, and President Ronald Crutcher.

The group went through more than $200 worth of origami paper as they held ''crane making parties'' and three open sessions for members of the college community to learn how to fold the cranes. The events drew a wide variety of people, said organizer Galen Kerrick '09, including ''people you wouldn't usually see doing activist work on campus. It was a really unifying project.''

It was also a sobering one. ''A lot of us have personal connections to some of the soldiers who have died, so it was a very emotional experience,'' said Martha Cornwell '08, another project organizer.

Alice Kellogg agreed. ''At one point we looked at this huge pile of cranes in the New Yellow Parlor and realized it was just a few hundred out of thousands--and each one represented someone's life,'' she said. ''It made us think about things and put [the war] in perspective, and realize what people in Iraq are going through.''

The cranes are meant as both a memorial and a message for peace, the students said.

''We are honoring everyone who serves in Iraq,'' said Martha Cornwell. ''As much as I disagree with the war, you have to give respect to the people who are over there--whether they are fighting, cooking for the troops or building new infrastructure.''