A friend of mine recently moved to Philly to take a new job. I got a nice letter from her today containing photos of her Civil War-era apartment and, curiously, quite a few shots of tiny, pink army men. She mentioned in her note that they were all around the city. Well, I did a bit of poking around, and it looks like they’re part of something called the Phantom Soldier Meditation Project. Apparently there are 3,764+ of them scattered throughout the Philadelphia. And, I assume it’s not a coincidence that the number of American war dead was at that number just a few months ago, when the campaign started. I don’t typically advocate vandalism, but, if there was ever a cause that warranted a little bit of property destruction, this is it. Any little thing that reminds us that men, women and children (both American and Iraqi) are dying every day, in my opinion, is a good thing. We’re all too happy to go about our lives as though we’re not at war. We need to be shaken out of it. I’m glad to see that someone in Philly is doing something about it. Hopefully, it will spread.
[It kind of reminds me of this classic street art campaign that cropped up in Germany a few years ago.]
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There was another project, a year or so ago, where some artists were making orange tshirts, each with the name of a different American killed in combat. I don’t know if it still continues.
Every Sunday from sunrise to sunset since February 15th 2004, a temporary memorial is erected in the sand just north of the pier at Santa Monica Beach in Los Angeles and at Sterns Wharf in Santa Barbara, California and other locations around the country by local chapters of Veterans For Peace (VFP) and volunteers. This memorial is known as Arlington West.
There’s now a Flickr group for the Phantom Soldier Meditation Project.