New Haven Independent

Local activists organized one of hundreds of vigils around the country to mark the occasion by reading the name of every fallen soldier, along with the names of just a few of the possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqi victims of the war. The gathering took place Monday by the flagpole on the lower Green.

The event was largely organized by John Shanley (pictured on the right, with Charlie Pillsbury, who read some of the names) through his own email lists and that of the greater New Haven Peace Council.

It was hard to get the word out about the vigil, falling as it did on a major holiday, but several dozen people came for all or part of the afternoon it took to read the names. Each name took just two to three seconds to read, so the enormity of the loss was apparent. Three dozen of the dead have Connecticut roots, including one “” Staff Sgt. Thomas Vitagliano “” from New Haven.

Susan Klein said it was a sad but appropriate way to mark the new year, since the war is ongoing and the death toll of both Americans and Iraqis has jumped in the past few months. “The more people die,” she said, “the more people in this country, I hope, will wake up and see the folly of all this, and the criminality, and will rise up with those of us who’ve been standing from the beginning, to try to put an end to it.” Click hereto hear some of her other thoughts.

Len Zimmerman, who said he served “proudly” in the Navy from 1945 to 1948, found it curious that it was only those against the war who came out to honor the dead in a public way. (In fact, some families of those killed in the war oppose such reading of the names of their loved ones by those who oppose the war, feeling it dishonors their memory.)

After reading the names on Monday, Pillsbury was inspired to continue reading the names of the dead. And not just those killed in Iraq, but those killed in New Haven “” 24 people in 2006. He invited others to join him in front of the office of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro at 59 Elm Street to read the names “until our elected officials respond by cutting off funds for the war in Iraq and increasing funding for badly needed programs in New Haven.” He’ll be there between 12:15 and 1 p.m. all week. The war in Iraq has cost New Haven taxpayers almost $173 million so far, according to the National Priorities Project.