Six Boys and 13 Hands
By an anonymous Wiscinsin native and James Bradley another WI native
Each year I am hired to go to a 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.' (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,
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 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 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. 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...please pray for our
troops. Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also
...please pray for our troops still in murderous places around the world.
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.
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