168 shoes and backpacks on the National Mall
168 shoes and backpacks on the National Mall
- Sun, Mar 15 2026 at 11:27 AM
Mark, stories of war are often broken down to facts and figures: casualty counts, types of weapons and their payloads, tallies, accounting. It makes it easy to forget that behind the numbers are people — with birthdays, dreams, favorite foods, loved ones.
February 28 should have been just another school day at Shajareh Tayyebeh in Minab, Iran. But 168 students, most of them between the ages of seven and 12, wouldn’t return home. They were killed by what now clearly appears to be a U.S. Tomahawk missile.[1]
This is just one, appalling example of the human cost of Trump’s unjustified, illegal war of choice.
Trump has refused to provide answers about the strike, claiming, “I don’t know about that.”[2] We can make sure he knows.
On Wednesday, March 18, we’ll line up dozens of backpacks and pairs of kids' shoes near the Capitol. This solemn, powerful display will provide a chance for members of Congress, partners, and the public to mourn the students and all those killed in our name. We’ll use this moment to reject any attempts to fund Trump’s war further and reaffirm our demands to end the violence.
And just like in the past, when we lit up the National Mall and White House with the words “Ceasefire Now” and “End Endless War,” we hope to see the images from this temporary memorial featured in news outlets across the globe.
Can you donate now to help us build this memorial and honor the lives cut short by U.S. and Israeli bombs in Iran?
CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper has confirmed that the U.S. military struck nearly 2,000 targets in the first 100 hours of the war alone. Thousands more bombs and missiles have been dropped across the region since. Thousands have been killed as a result, including hundreds of children and as many as 14 U.S. servicemembers.
Thousands of weddings and anniversaries that will be missed. Hundreds of toothy grins gone.
For too many, our forever wars are faraway stories. But for people like us, the anti-war majority? We refuse to let the people killed become statistics — and as we reckon with their pain and suffering, we work to build a future where people are free from the sort of violence we’re witnessing.
That’s why this memorial matters. When congressional staffers walk past rows of backpacks and kids' shoes on the way to their offices, when journalists circulate images of our installation across the internet, when lawmakers see crowds gathering to memorialize the lives lost, and come to offer their own respects, they can no longer treat war like an abstract debate.
And right now, as lawmakers begin to decide whether they’ll spend billions MORE dollars to fund this illegal war, Mark, we refuse to let them forget the people who will pay the ultimate cost.
It’s up to us to make sure DC decision-makers can’t look away from Shajareh Tayyebeh and anywhere U.S. bombs drop.
Ignoring these costs of war erases our humanity and allows the violence to drive forward.
We refuse to let Trump and others distract and deny. Not when the people of Iran — and people across the Middle East — are being forced to bear the cost of a war they never chose. And not when our own government still has the power to stop the violence.
Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team
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