Claim: Photograph shows flag-draped coffins arrayed around the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C.
Status: Multiple — see below.
Examples: [Collected via e-mail, 2005]
Origins: The above-displayed image is another entry difficult to classify as either "real" or "not real." It's real in the sense that it's an unmanipulated photograph, but it's also not real in the sense that the scene depicted was staged with props.
This photograph dates from 23 October 2004 and shows a symbolic protest against the war in Iraq mounted in Washington, D.C., by the 75-member Iraq War Memorial Coalition. As the Associated Press reported about one of the event's organizers:
"We just wanted to get across the idea that there's a human cost to this war," said Elder, 49, who owns a real estate title company in Bethesda, Md. "We're not the radical ones. We are moderates, We're not all antiwar, we're just against this war."
Pat Elder, who helped organize the event, said the 75-member coalition was formed two weeks ago by people who belonged to the Quaker faith, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.
An anonymous donor from Texas contributed $20,000 to the group, which they used to buy cardboard prop coffins and flags. Volunteers spent six hours assembling 1,100 flag-draped cardboard coffins (representing the 1,100 members of the U.S. military who had died since the beginning of the Iraq war in
Last updated: 3 November 2005
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