At seven on the evening of the first Thursday in February, 2004, a stiff wind from the Willamette River brought the temperature almost to the freezing point. Candles blew out as fast as they were lit. Everyone gathered around the two lists, each ten feet tall.

The ceremony began with a speech by Eric Bagai:

War is terrible. War is hell. We say these words, but the meaning is hidden from us by the words themselves because war is too terrible, and too hellish to bear.

When a nation goes to war, it sends its children. We call them young men and women, but look at their pictures in the newspapers. They are children. They go to war to kill the evil creatures of our nightmares, but what they kill are other children, like themselves. They also kill the parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters of those "enemy" children. This is the truth of war.

Most of us here are parents. We would do anything to protect our children. We build our lives around them. We choose leaders to protect them. Therefore, war is the ultimate failure of any nation, because it sacrifices its greatest treasure to defend itself.

Our children defend us without hesitation, because we are their parents. Now we must honor their memory with the truth. It cannot hurt them, and it cannot give aid to our enemies. So we seek the truth of this war, no matter how painful or disgraceful; no matter what it says of us or our leaders. We owe at least this much to our children, and in the hope of sparing tomorrow's children.

We have this obligation to those who died in our name -- to all of the dead, of all nations. We have come here to fulfill our responsibility as members of a community and to mourn for these dead. We leave here dedicated to find the truth: for them, for us, and for our nation. The lists you see here show the names of those who died on September eleventh, 2001, and those who died afterwards, in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are some three and a half thousand names. The lists also show the numbers of those Afghan and Iraqi civilians who were killed -- we have only a few of their names. They number just over eleven thousand. It's estimated that another eleven thousand Afghan and Iraqi military were also killed. If we could list all of their names, there would be twenty more boards here tonight.

One hundred and one Iraqi civilians were killed last month. We do not know their names. Forty American and coalition men and women were also killed last month. Now we will read their names aloud.

. . . .

Next month, on Thursday, March 5th, the speaker will be Goudarz Eghtedari. Please come, and bring a friend.

The ceremony concluded at 7:20 pm, and the park was empty by eight.