Great Post!
Thanks for the reminder. I’m heading out to fly the flag right now.
My late uncle was in that fight.The word carnage is the closest to describing what he went through.
Great Post!
God bless these American heroes who put the country and their buddies lives before their own.
And to my dad, who managed to survive the whole thing.
Here Here.
Great post!
And leaders who knew what needed to be done.
Give honest, decent men a moral undertaking - and they will achieve absolutely incredible things under even the worst conditions.
Slowly coming to the realization that Russia, Germany, Italy ,France, Britain and Japan lost forever its best genetic stock from 1914-1945 explaining the current mess they now have. Coming to believe that although America’s losses were proportionately much lower, the loss of those brave men has forever damaged the fabric of the country.
27 U.S. Marine Corps and Navy personnel were awarded Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration in America, for their heroics in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Semper Fi
Fair Winds and Following Seas
During the funeral for one, I found out that two of my best friends were among the marines who fought in Iwo Jima. My friend Joe was being buried in the military section of the cemetery when I remarked to the other friend that I never knew Joe was in the military. My friend Jim said both he and Joe were in the marines and were part of the force that fought at Iwo Jima. He said when you’ve been in those bloody assaults, you don’t talk about it.
I tried to correct the author about his Guadalcanal error, but to do so required interaction wigh google, which is something up with which I will not put... :)
I had the honor of calling one of the men who was at Iwo Jima my friend - he was a Mississippi Choctaw Indian and an icon in the Ocean Springs area.
Gradual Canal?! How about Guadalcanal. Sheesh.
The picture on my home page is of me saluting the memorial on top of Mt Suribachi. Definitely the most memorable place I visited during my military career. Semper Fidelis.
I don’t think the Marines got the worst of it at Guadalcanal ...the Navy did.
Several decades ago, as an Immigration Officer I worked with a Customs officer who was a Marine and Iwo Jima veteran, Vaughn Shaw, originally from Mars Hill, ME or thereabouts. Great guy, good officer, wrote poetry, gentle, but tough as nails. He enlisted with his best friend, whose name I have forgotten. They went through Marine training together, and hit the beach together. His friend had a premonition that he would not make it off the beach alive. Very serious about it. While on the beach, in a shell hole, with all sorts of metal and lead flying about, Vaughn’s best friend looked right at him and said, “Vaughn, I think I’m going to make it!” Those were his last words, as a shell fragment or bullet ripped through his head just as the words left his mouth.
