HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY.

Memorial weekend is a good time to reflect on what it means to be a hero. And what better way to conduct this reflection than to ask ourselves what it was really like for those six heroes who hoisted aloft the American flag on mount Iwo Jima, Japan, near the end of the war.

This World War 11 memorial in Washington, DC of the six brave soldiers raising the flag is the largest statue in the world. But who were those six brave men, and how did they feel about what they did? Fortunately, the son of one of the soldiers is James Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin who wrote a book called ‘Flags of Our Fathers.’ In it he tells the story of the six boys immortalized on that statue :

“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 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.’

“The next guy is 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 that Rene put 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 third guy in this tableau, is Sergeant Mike Strank. (from Johnstown, PA).  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 about to fight other little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

“The next guy is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes was one of them who lived to walk 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?’ Ira Hayes carried the pain home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down, drowned in a very shallow puddle, at the age
of 32 (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. 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 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 combat caregiver. On Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died on 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.’

If you look closely at the statue and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. But there were only six boys. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the  13th hand was the hand of God.

So then, what is a hero? A hero is not someone extraordinary, but someone ordinary like you who is capable of extraordinary courage.

There’s a hero
If you look inside your heart
You don’t have to be afraid
Of what you are
There’s an answer
If you reach into your soul
Look inside you and be strong
And you’ll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you.

Happy Memorial Day.

Please pray for all soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their country.