Right on Donald, Col Wm. D. Leed IV U.S.A Ret.
-----Original Message-----
From: DON LOOS <l.donaldl...@gmail.com>
To: DON LOOS <l.donaldl...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 9:26 pm
Subject: Fw: SIX BOYS AND 13 HANDS-LEST WE FORGET
Worth repeating....
6 BOYS AND 13 HANDS - A Must Read
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 capital,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.'
(It was James Bradley, who 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,
D. C., 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 wrote a book called 'Flags
of Our Fathers'. 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 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?'
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, drowned in a very shallow puddle, 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 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.'
'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 he 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.
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 true
story - worth your time - worth every American's
time.
