Soldiers mourned in anti-war video filmed locally by guitarist Robert Cray

Aidan Delgado, an Iraq war veteran from Sarasota, Fla., who is a conscientious objector to the war, puts on a pair of boots at the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in Rollinsford, which features 2,026 pairs of Army boots, representing each American soldier killed in Iraq. The exhibit served as a backdrop for blues guitarist Robert Cray's music video, "Twenty." Photo by Rich Beauchesne

By Joe Adler jadler@seacoastonline.com

ROLLINSFORD - "When you뭨e used up, where do you go, soldier?"

The question keeps coming up in guitarist Robert Cray뭩 song "Twenty," a parable about the Iraq war dead.

The answer is hard to find, says the five-time Grammy winner. As American casualties mount, he said, stories about the thousands of fallen soldiers have been taken off the front page.

Yet Cray has attempted to give a face to the victims. The song - accompanying a music video being filmed at numerous Seacoast locations this week - is a testament to lives left behind.

"You don뭪 see soldiers coming back in coffins. You don뭪 hear about it that much," said Cray, 52, sitting on an open field Tuesday in Rollinsford, where more than 2,000 pairs of military boots - representing the number of war dead - were assembled as a backdrop for the video.

The boots are part of a traveling exhibit titled "Eyes Wide Open," which has been laid out for public viewing throughout the country as part of a war awareness campaign by the American Friends Service Committee.

Donated by veterans, each pair of boots represents one soldier who was killed. Their names are attached to the boots, along with other elements donated by families that inform the viewer about the soldiers?lives.

"It뭩 not front-page news anymore," Cray, whose music blends gospel and blues with other styles, said of the death toll.

"It뭩 only spoken briefly about on the television news. They might read the names and show the faces, which is a good thing, but it really doesn뭪 convey a sense like this does."

"Twenty," the title track of an album released earlier this year, tells the story of an unnamed, 20-year-old soldier who dies in the war. In the video, the soldier is played by Aidan Delgado, a 23-year-old Iraq-war veteran who served in Nasiriyah and at Abu Ghraib prison, and obtained conscientious objector status after disapproving of war atrocities he says he witnessed.

Scenes include Delgado in street clothes wandering through the soldier뭩 hometown, set in downtown Dover. Toward the end, he walks in the field and sees the boots. After he steps into a pair of them, the camera shows the soldier changed into a military uniform, and his fate as one of the hundreds dead is confirmed.

Sue Turner-Cray, the musician뭩 wife and the director, was part of the crew that chose the field - adjacent to the Garrison Community Theatre - and other local spots to shoot the video. Other scenes will be shot at Fort Foster and Seapoint Beach, both in Kittery, Maine.

The boots exhibit was unveiled in January 2004, when the American military death in toll in Iraq was 504.

As the exhibition has moved, more boots have been added, and families of the dead have come to add a piece of a soldier뭩 life - like a teddy bear or a letter.

Most of the boots are black, unlike the beige-colored ones worn in the desert. In one case, however, a North Dakota family donated pairs of contemporary military boots for its fallen soldier and all others from the state.

"Every time we exhibit them, new people come," said Christin Hinojosa, who developed the display while interning for the American Friends Service Committee.

"It뭩 just grown that way. And of course, they뭭e grown in number. We started with 500."

video footage:::Link Here