Veterans for Peace to light 3,000 candles in Santa Monica tonight.

3,000 Candles Lit Tonight Honoring Each One of the Fallen Soldiers

Call for Peace for the New Year

WHAT: Special Candlelight Memorial for Peace in Iraq

A Candles Lit Tonight Honoring Each One of the 3,00 Fallen Soldiers

WHERE:  Arlington West just north of the Santa Monica Pier

WHEN: TONIGHT New Year’s Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 4 PM

SANTA MONICA, CA -- Candlelight memorial will commemorate those lost in Iraq – both military and civilian, both American and Iraqi – following today’s sad announcement that the 3,000th U.S. serviceperson has died, according to the Department of Defense records.

So far, more U.S. lives have been lost in Iraq than in the first four years of the Vietnam War.  In addition, more than 25,000 U.S. servicepersons have been seriously injured in Iraq.  Estimates of Iraqi casualties vary widely, but a recent Johns Hopkins study published in The Lancet put the figure as high as 600,000 Iraqis killed.

Every Sunday, the Arlington West Memorial Project sets up crosses in the sand, directly north of the Santa Monica Pier, highly visible to the thousands of people who came out for a day at the beach. Each cross represents an American soldier who has died in Iraq including the names, ages, hometowns and circumstances of their deaths.