October 13, 2005

Flags of Our Fathers

If you could go back to school and pay more attention to any one subject what would it be?

I’d have to say history class. With history, I think it either enthralls you or bores you. It used to bore me. Now it enthralls me. And now I have a lot of making up to do. The era of history that’s the least put together in my head are 19th and 20th century events. I have a disjointed array of facts and information in my brain, but little context to fit them all together. It’s not that I zoned out in school. I did well in school, finishing 7th in my graduating class of nearly 300. So what happened? How did I miss so much?

I think part of it is that U.S. history class started with the Indians and began to run out of steam by the time we time we arrived at the 20th century. We skimmed right through the World Wars. I diligently learned a few names and facts for test, but that was it.

So when I sat down and read a book recently by James Bradley entitled Flags of our Fathers, I couldn’t put it down. The storyline follows the lives of six men boys (one of which is Bradley’s father) whose profiles make it into the most reproduced photograph of all time: the soldiers raising the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

The Hellish Battle

The battle of Iwo Jima was a major turning point battle in World War II. The 8-square-mile island was critical because its airfields allowed U.S. bombers to land, refuel, and complete their mission over to the mainland of Japanese.

The island was fortified by 22,000 Japanese soldiers, and the crazy thing is, most US soldiers never saw a single Japanese soldier. That’s because they were not ¬on Iwo Jima. They were in Iwo Jima. They had created an extensive labyrinth of caves and tunnels, from whence they would unleash a hellish firestorm of mortars and rifle rounds.

February 23rd, 1945, D-Day, an armada of 30, 000 U.S. troops began landing on the beach. 40,000 more troops would eventually follow. It was a literal blood bath. The American forces would go on to secure the island, but not without suffering 26,000 casualties (nearly 7,000 dead).

Think About It

Before you gloss over those numbers, think about what you were doing when you were 18, 19, or 20 years old. I was playing basketball, tennis, and figuring out which girl I should chase. These boys gave all. I’m sure there were many different reasons to do this, but it mainly comes down to, they were just trying to protect the buddy next to them.

Three of the six men in that photograph didn’t come home. Their images did. Their images are now chiseled in a big hunk of metal in Washington D.C. I’ve been to Washington once, but never made it to the Iwo Jima Memorial. Never knew it was there to be honest with you. Next time I go, I’ll see it. I’ll take Caleb when he’s old enough. We’ll walk down the rows of tombstones in Arlington National cemetery. We’ll talk about freedom. We’ll talk about why freedom is so magnificent. We’ll talk about why it must be protected.

Forgetting the incredible cost of freedom is tragic. That’s true on a personal level, but on a national level, forgetting the cost of freedom is a precursor to losing it. We have to keep telling the stories about the price of our freedom.

The Movie

Steven Spielberg read the book at friends suggestion. He liked it. He purchased the movie rights soon after if was published. Later, Clint Eastwood approached him about directing the film. They began shooting the movie in August, and should be out sometime in 2006. I can’t wait.