The organizers of the "Signal Orange" t-shirt campaign want people to wear shirts displaying the identities of individual US soldiers killed in Iraq. They say the project serves to remind the world that war creates real victims on both sides. Snip from their project overview:
"Signal Orange is a project to make the invisible visible — which is a premise and prerequisite for democracy. The goal of Signal Orange is to unveil the faces that the Bush Administration wants hidden — and to stop pretending that its actions in Iraq are inconsequential."This is a response: Signal Orange represents the dead with the living — wearing T-shirts in their names. There is one shirt for each soldier who died. The front states how he or she died, the back reads, "(Rank) (First) (Last) can't vote anymore." The signal orange color of the shirt was chosen for the same reason it is used where caution is required — it's the most visible color in person, on camera, and on video. The shirts are to be worn in places where the media is focused, whether that focus is momentary or constant. Examples might include the audience outside a morning talk show, or a parade, or a sporting event, and it certainly includes the Republican National Convention in NYC come September.
"Signal Orange doesn't say that these soldiers or their families condemn or support the war, and it doesn't speak for them. Whether they opposed or supported the war, they were fighting for our right to decide democratically whether a war is just or not. They've been buried twice–once in the ground, and once in the media. If we can make them visible in the media through Signal Orange, we can demonstrate that they had voices that have been lost."
