The war in Iraq appears to be winding down, but it may take a bit longer to bring peace to a small South Jersey town that has been torn over the right to hang yellow ribbons in support of the troops.

To brighten the room yet block light and the dismal ground-floor view, the students hung colorful ribbons from tension rods.

Families of people detained in Kuwait and Iraq have begun to hang yellow ribbons on trees in their yards, reminding many of Iran's seizure of American hostages a decade ago and the political disaster that the crisis was for President Jimmy Carter.

Apart from the bedrooms and bathrooms, there are no interior walls - divisions and closets were created by hanging Mylar ribbons from the ceiling.

All around him in the church hung bright ribbons of blue and gold, the colors of Montoursville High School.

And the consensus in this largely white, middle-class community that hung yellow ribbons during the truck driver's recuperation and raised money for his medical bills seemed to be that the suspects, Damian M. Williams and Henry K. Watson, had gotten off too easy.

Many of the soldiers, caught up in the prince's own dark humor, had hung shadow-catching ribbons from their guns.

A dreaded symbol of war began to mark the landscape in three communities today, as friends and family of the American soldiers captured along the border of Macedonia and Kosovo hung yellow ribbons on their clothing, in their yards and along the streets.

Beauchamp once hung colored ribbons from the statue of William Penn atop Philadelphia City Hall to nearby buildings, creating the look of a maypole more than 500 feet tall.