Thanks Pidge!
Each boy in the service did so much more in the service of America than the present traitorous potus. God, please bless them and you.
SamKat
Six Boys And
Thirteen Hands...
WOW
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 cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese
heads, and I will tell you a story.'
(It was James
Bradley who 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
had 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 , DC , 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. (Here are his words that
night.)
'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 people 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 - and it was so hard that the ones
who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.
(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. It was just boys who 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.'
'The last guy on
this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona .. Ira Hayes
was one of them who lived to walk 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 carried the pain home with him and eventually died dead drunk,
face down, drowned in a very shallow puddle, 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 Those 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, like Ira
Hayes, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are
heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He
was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a combat caregiver. On Iwo Jima
he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died on Iwo Jima ,
they writhed and screamed, without any medication or help with the 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 God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but
also at great sacrifice
Let us never forget
from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars
in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom...please pray for our
troops.
Remember to pray
praises for this great country of ours and also ...please pray for our troops
still in murderous places around the world.
STOP and thank God
for being alive and being free due to someone else's sacrifice.
God Bless You and
God Bless America ..
REMINDER: Everyday
that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.
One thing I learned
while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is .
. that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of 'hands'
raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why
there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God.
Great story - worth
your time - worth every American's time. Please pass it on
