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.'
(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 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 who 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 carried the pain
home with him and eventually 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.
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 Wisconsinwas 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, 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.
Remember
to pray praises for this great country of ours
and also pray for those still in murderous
unrest around the
world.
STOP
and thank God for being alive and being free at
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
