癲狂院 Vixen Owl Cigar..。o○

It's About a Generation, Not Just Iwo Jima...


Imagine an 18 yr. Old Boy...
Thanks, Jim Bradley, for bringing focus to the shadowy photograph of your Dad.
Jack (Doc) Bradley, like so many others, at far too young an age, saw death and carnage at close range and in incredible volume.
They would never again be the same as before war exploded in their faces.

Bradley searches for reasons why Doc, a US Navy Corpsman with the Marines on Iwo Jima and a Navy Cross winner, would never open up about his wartime experiences.. We find, simply, and in graphic detail, that they were too horrible.. For the first four years of their marriage after his return from the war and recuperation from wounds, relates his wife, Doc would cry in his sleep every night.. In tracing out his Dad's history, he finds the other survivors of Iwo who suffered in their private hells.......

Jim Bradley explores the lives of the six flag raisers, including Doc, who were immortalized in the famous picture on Mount Suribachi that became the model for the Marine Corp monument near Arlington Cemetery.
He produces a portrait of typical American (except one ) young men who enlisted and whose shed blood ultimately saved this country in a time of mortal danger.
He traces them through the brutal fight for the small Pacific island of Iwo Jima on the march to Japan.
The casualties of that fight were staggering; President Roosevelt shuddered and his eyes filled with tears when he read the first reports.
Bradley then shows his father as the man returning to his small home town reorienting his life and becoming the quiet, unassuming pillar of his community.
Of the three survivors, Doc is the only one who brings normalcy back to his life - a major achievement.

Bradley's book is an important work.
We lose 1000 veterans of WWII a day and they are the insiders to what Tom Brokaw has called The Greatest Generation.
Along with Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" , Flags of Our Fathers is there to show what this gr8est generation suffered for the freedoms we too often take for granted.

【James Bradley et al】Flags of Our Fathers
Flags of Our Fathers: Living Down Those 15 Minutes...
Bradley's narrative has a personal focus.
His father was one of the Marines in the picture and the final survivor of the group. Bradley's father spoke little about the war before his death.
James Bradley turns his personal quest to understand his father's experience into a well researched and exhaustive history of the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Along the way he resurrects the stories of men who became celebrities as a result of "The Photograph ," but who seem largely forgotten as individuals now.
The descriptions of the battle are powerful enough to take you into the nightmare world that was Iwo Jima.
Just thinking about the combat scenes as I write this is enough to give me a chill.

From there, in what I found to be the most fascinating part of the book, Bradley takes us from the heroism of the battlefield into a different kind of service.
The six Marines are sent on a whirlwind tour to promote the "Mighty Seventh " war bond drive.
I was familiar with old pictures of Grand Central Terminal with the war bond banners up, but I had never read a historic treatment until now.

What was significant?
It is that these 6 along with "rivers " of boys - my father and father-in-law included- did their duty with a measure of courage unmatched by age ;
It is that they cared, yes, each other to the point of throwing themselves on live grenades without hesitation.

And when asked 50 years later...Why?
One simply said "to save my buddies " ; It is that the battle fought for 36 days on an ugly scab of an island in the Pacific greatly changed the course of the war.. American bombers could begin devastating attacks on Tokyo without being shot down from Japanese literally entrenched IN Iwo Jima.....
What they did...and most died doing... made a difference.
And lastly...it is that we remember.
We absolutely MUST remember that our liberty came at a gr8 price.
Inscribed outside the cemetery where Mike, Harlon, and Franklin are buried:
"When you go home
Tell them for us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today".

It is not important to me whether whoever sees this review "highly recommends " it or even leaves a comment.
What IS important is that you READ THE BOOK.
James Bradley has done a Smithsonian - like service by collecting myriad oral histories before it is too late.
I highly recommend that you do yourself a service by reading this book.