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The Iwo
Jima Statue “They Were Just Boys”
This past fall I visited the magnificent WW II Memorial (reported in The Valley Patriot, November 2005, The Greatest Generation). Afterwards, we wandered over to that great statue in the early evening hours. A young crowd of students had gathered around a middle-aged man who stood at the base of this towering monument. A few of my fellow WW II veterans stood in the rear in respectful silence and listened to his riveting tale. The man was James Bradley and he just happened to be in Washington to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say goodnight to his dad, who had since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the school buses pull up, so he stayed to speak to the students. “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 number
five on the New York Times Best Seller List. It is the
story of the six boys you see behind me. “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 generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys at Iwo Jima were 17, 18 and 19 years old. (Pointing 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. Boys won the Battle of Iwo Jima. Boys, not old men. “The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the ‘old man.’ 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 walked off Iwo Jima. He went to the White House with my dad, and 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, and 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 continually had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes 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-loving, hillbilly boy. His best friend who is now 80 told me, ‘Yeah, you know we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we fed them epsom salts. They let loose 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. The 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, we don’t know when he is coming back.’ My dad never fished or went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting right there 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 them. You see, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes because they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. At Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died at Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in 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 were the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.’ “That’s the end of 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,” ... and he quietly walked away. 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 a great cost. Let us never forget that from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism - and all the wars in between - great sacrifices were made for our freedom.God bless and protect our military and their families, and God Bless America. Editorial Note: February 17th marked the 61st anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. *Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
The Iwo Jima Memorial Statue in
Washington, D.C. is the largest bronze statue in the
world. It depicts a defining moment in the most famous
photograph in history — that of six brave soldiers
raising the American flag at the top of a rocky hill on
the island of Iwo Jima, Japan during WW II — where
7,000 of our boys were killed in action.