A Tale of Six Boys
Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable. On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.
Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?"
I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a cheesehead, too! Come gather around, Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story." (James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up.) I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington,D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)
When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak...
"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me."
"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.
(He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph ... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.
"The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.
(see note below story)
"The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?'
So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 ... ten years after this picture was taken.
"The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.' Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning.. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.
"The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.'
'My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press. "You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.'
"When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'
"So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."
Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.
We need to remember that this vast and glorious world was created for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to Iraq and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom. Remember to say praises for this great country of ours and also for those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP and offer thanks for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice.
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Note: Sgt. Mike Strank's nephew, Capt. Joseph Strank, was attached to
Mike Co. 3/3, 1967-68 VietNam as an artillery Forward Observer
Story via Email... author's name uncertain at posting.
With the approach of both the 228th birthday of the Marine Corps on November 10, and Veterans Day on November 11, I thought you might be interested in the following as food for thought:
RABBI GITTLESOHN'S SERMON
The most famous image in American history was Joe Rosenthal's photo of the second flag raising over Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima in February of 1945, toward the end of the first week of battle. (The first flag was considered too small to be seen clearly from a distance, so a larger flag was brought in from one of the ships.) The photo is memorialized in Washington, DC, in the Marine Corps Memorial. It is an image we all know. It is an image that tells the world that Americans planted the flag of freedom at great price.
What many of us don't know is that the battle for this piece of volcanic real estate that reeked of sulphur was one of the bloodiest of World War II. Beginning on February 19, 1945, Marine forces, 70,000 strong, fought an unknown number of deeply entrenched Japanese defenders inch by inch, yard by yard, for five weeks. In the end, the Marines took over
25,000 casualties, with more than 6,000 killed in action taking the island.
We would fail in our duty, not just to each other as Americans, but to our brothers and sisters around the world, if we failed to remember the eloquent eulogy delivered by an American rabbi at the dedication of the Marine Cemetery at the end of the fighting.
Rabbi Roland B. Gittlesohn was the first Jewish Chaplain for the Marine Corps. More than 1,500 Jewish Marines were in the invading force at Iwo Jima. Rabbi Gittlesohn was in the thick of the battle, ministering to fallen Marines of every faith under enemy fire. He shared their fear, horror and despair. His unending efforts to comfort the wounded and inspire the fearful earned him three decorations.
After the battle, the Division Chaplain, Warren Cuthriell, a Protestant minister, asked the rabbi to deliver the memorial sermon at a combined religious service dedicating the Marine Cemetery on Iwo Jima. Cuthriell wanted all the fallen Marines honored in a single, non-denominational ceremony. Unfortunately the Marine Corps, being a reflection of America, was still strongly prejudiced. A majority of the Christian chaplains objected to having a rabbi preach over predominantly Christian graves. The Catholic chaplains, in particular, and in keeping with what was then Church doctrine, opposed any form of joint prayer service.
To his credit, Cuthriell refused to alter his plans. But Gittlesohn wanted to spare his friend Cuthriell further embarrassment, and so decided it was best not to deliver his sermon. Instead, three separate services were held. At the Jewish service, to a congregation of 70 or so who attended, Rabbi Gittlesohn delivered the powerful eulogy he originally wrote for the combined service:
Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich men and poor . . . together. Here are Protestants, Catholics and Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many men of each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.
Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this, then, as our solemn duty, sacred duty do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the right of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, of white men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price. . .
We here solemnly swear that this shall not be in vain. Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.
Authored by Keith T. Sefton of NASA
Fwd by: Dave Johnson M/3/3 1965
