Rememberance of Past

[farleycat]

I received this e-mail from my sister today and am forwarding it to all in my address book. Thought I might post it here. It is sometimes so very easy to forget and this story makes it a little harder for that to happen.

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Six Boys And Thirteen Hands...

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 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, 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.

Michael T. Powers





Great story - worth your time - worth every American's time