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SIX BOYS AND 13 HANDS
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 , 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.
'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: Every day 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... 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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