This is the Lowery shot, the first flag raising, which isn’t the universally recognized shot (or raising):
http://www.iwojima.com/raising/lflagi.gif
I remember when I first read the story and saw the Lowery shots in 1972. I was a Marine Sgt and it changed my perspective on the workings of media and its effect on morale.
The Rosenthal shot was the perfect shot and I understand why it gained the notoriety it did. What was sad, was that most of the original raisers went immediately back into the battle and were killed. It wasn’t in the best interest of maintaining national morale to put out anything about the original raising and the men involved but after it was all over, to ignore it entirely, was a slap in the face of those guys who fought their way up that ridge to raise the first flag.
I served with a MGySgt who saw the raising of the first flag. For the Marines on the beach, that was the morale builder and he didn’t know anything about the second one until after the fighting was over.
The Iwo battle was hard fought example of real heroism for all involved in the campaign.
