Badges - Six Boys And Thirteen Hands...
- From: CarlGlas@xxxxxxxxxxx
- To: badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:32:25 -0500
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.
Great story - worth your time - worth every American's time.
The Badges Law Enforcement Discussion Group - Est. 1997
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