The Boys of Iwo Jima

From the book: Heart Touchers "Life-Changing Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter"Each year my video production company is hired to go to Washington, DC with the eighth grade class from Clinton, Wisconsin where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I always enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. But this fall's trip was especially memorable.On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. It is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- the W.W.II image of the six brave men raising the American flag at the top of Mount Surabachi on the Island of Iwo Jima, Japan. About one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed toward 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?"

"Wisconsin," I replied.

"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 goodnight 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, 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.

"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."

That's when he pointed to the guy putting the pole in the ground and told us his name was 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 twenty-one, died with his intestines in his hands."

Bradley shared that detail with us because he said that generals stand in front of the statue and talk about the glory of war. "You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years old."

He pointed again 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, you would find a photograph in the webbing. A photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection, because he was scared. He was eighteen years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not men."

The next image on the statue was that of Sergeant Mike Strank, we learned. "Mike is my hero." Bradley exclaimed. "He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the 'old man' because he was so old. He was already twenty-four. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill the enemy' 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 next man on the statue was Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona who lived through the terror of Iwo Jima. "Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad and 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 twenty-seven of us walked off alive?'"

"So you take your class at school. Two hundred and fifty of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only twenty-seven of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind."

We learned that Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of thirty-two, ten years after the famous photo was taken.

"The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky, a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy," Bradley continued. "Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of nineteen. 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."

Finally Bradley pointed to the statue's image of his father, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin. His dad lived until 1994, but declined all interviews. "When Walter Kronkite, 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 right there 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."

Bradley recalled his third grade teacher calling the elder Bradley 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, Bradley finished. "Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, seven thousand 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."

That number boggled my mind as I tried to comprehend how many lives those deaths altered back on American soil so many years ago. How many hearts of loved ones left behind were seared? Loved ones like this proud son who had so graciously shared part of his history with us.

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 through the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero then ... and now.

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Michael T. PowersHeartTouchers@aol.comCopyright © 2000 by Michael T. Powers. Michael T. Powers is the founder of HeartTouchers.com and Heart4Teens.com. He is happily married to his high school sweetheart Kristi and proud father of three young boys. He is also an author with stories in 20 inspirational books including many in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. To preview his books or to join the thousands of world wide readers on his inspirational e-mail lists, visit:http://www.HeartTouchers.com