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Just a reminder, to day is the 72nd anniversary of the flag raising on Mt Suribachi.

Seventy two years ago today the United States Marine Corps sent waves of teenage men onto the black, foreboding beaches on a Japanese held island called Iwo Jima. Capturing Iwo Jima was essential to the American war against Japan as it offered a place for battered bombers to safely land which would save the lives of hundreds of airmen returning from sorties over Japan in barely flyable planes. The average age of these men was just under nineteen. They knew what was at stake and charged up Iwo’s beaches sometimes straight into enemy machine gun fire that would have stopped...

Two new movies based on a bloody 1945 battle are stirring up memories and forcing both sides to re-examine their history More than 60 years after it became one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Second World War, Iwo Jima's tragic history retains the power to overwhelm. As his plane prepared to land on the isolated Japanese island last month, the actor Ken Watanabe found he could not hold back the tears. Accompanying Watanabe, who shot to stardom playing a feudal warlord opposite Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, was another hard man of Hollywood whose time on Iwo Jima...

  I have received several requests/suggestions that I change a reference made in the poem whichappears on my "It Is The Veteran" web page. The line reads: Where five good men raised this Flag so high,That the WHOLE DAMN WORLD COULD SEE IT FLY. The requests/suggestions are to correct this line to read: Where SIX good men raised this Flag so high,That the WHOLE DAMN WORLD COULD SEE IT FLY.   First let me say that I am not the author of the verses that appears on this page.I have done an extensive search and, as near as I can tell, the actual author...