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Iwo Jima: ‘The Ghastly Price of Freedom’
Breitbart's Big Peace ^ | February 21, 2014 | Jarrett Stepman

Posted on 02/21/2014 3:11:14 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Surprisingly this hasn't been posted.

 photo lflage_zps09ccd066.gif

21 posted on 02/21/2014 4:30:32 PM PST by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: stevem; All

My uncle, my mom’s baby brother, was 17 years old.

He was the second wave to hit the beach on that first day. After surviving, one of his jobs was to guard the bodies of the dead, so their belongings would not be stolen.

He committed suicide in his mid thirties, leaving behind his young wife and two small children. He never recovered from the horrors of that day.


22 posted on 02/21/2014 4:30:33 PM PST by jacquej ("It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.")
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To: workerbee

Yes, most on FR truly love our military.

One of my father’s close high school friends was in the Airborne. He jumped behind the lines in Normandy, into Holland and was trucked into the Bulge. Wife and I became very close friends with he and his wife when he was doing his Doctorate work. Wife and I were just finishing college.

He was one tough little guy. They lived in AK for many years, then retired back in Texas.

When his widow needed to move into a care home, we bought their house. Still live in it.


23 posted on 02/21/2014 4:31:50 PM PST by Texas Fossil (Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!)
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To: Texas Fossil

My grandmother’s only brother died at the Battle of the Bulge, age 19. So incomprehensible to think of those kinds of casualties now.... hundreds or thousands of men every battle.


24 posted on 02/21/2014 4:37:15 PM PST by workerbee (The President of the United States is DOMESTIC ENEMY #1!)
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To: Riley

That’s the way it should be.

Thanks for your service, FRiend.


25 posted on 02/21/2014 4:39:28 PM PST by rlmorel ("A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." A. Hamilton)
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To: Texas resident
I read or heard in a documentary that basically we traded Marine casualties for Air Corps casualties in that the number of airmen who were saved by being able to land at Iwo and who would have died had that not been possible was greater than the number of Marines lost taking it.

I've always wondered if that was true or another one of the rationalizations someone came up with after the fact. I do realize, however, that since very few people knew about the bomb the island was taken with a much longer and more costly air campaign in mind. The aircrew casualties they were expecting are another group of lives the bomb spared.

26 posted on 02/21/2014 4:43:37 PM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: workerbee

I figured it out once, a man was killed every 7.4 minutes on Iwo Jima for 35 days, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Staggering.


27 posted on 02/21/2014 4:46:55 PM PST by rlmorel ("A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." A. Hamilton)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yeah, my dad also. He was Infantry on a troop ship, surrounded by cruisers and carriers to the horizon, sailing around in circles ready to invade Japan when the atomic bombings were announced.

In August 2002 I was able to thank Paul Tibbets, Pilot of Enola Gay, for what he did. He replied: “Glad your father was able to come home! I appreciate your contacting me!” I still have the printout of the email.


28 posted on 02/21/2014 4:54:47 PM PST by Unknowing (Now is the time for all smart little girls to come to the aid of their country.)
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To: rlmorel

Ah, feel weird again.

Good story for you. I am in the DC area and ride a motorcycle. When I rode in Rolling Thunder the year before last, I got off of the track at the end and ended up on surface streets, feeling my way back toward the Thunder Alley area. At one point I had to park, cool off and water down. I bumped into some Aussies (God bless ‘em) who were here on their first visit to the US. The husband was very frank. “I never wanted to come to the US. I got talked into it. But I have to admit, I wish that Oz held their veterans in the same regard that Americans do”.

I was moved by that.

When I ride Rolling Thunder, I’m on the road early-early. Even when it’s chilly and barely light, riding I-395 up towards the Pentagon, there’ll be civilians on the overpasses, up out of their warm beds, with American flags, out there with their whole families, waving to me.

My goggles have some kind of issue, they get blurry. I remember thinking, these are my people. This is my tribe.

I couldn’t be more proud of them.


29 posted on 02/21/2014 4:57:23 PM PST by Riley (The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

There were 21,000+/- Japanese when the US Marines went ashore, When the island was declared secure there were less than 1000 Japanese that had surrendered or were taken prisoner left alive. “History of United States Naval Operations in WWII by ADM Samuel Eliot Morison volume XIV”. First chapter of a thick analog book.


30 posted on 02/21/2014 5:04:16 PM PST by mongo141 (Revolution ver. 2.0, just a matter of when, not a matter of if!)
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To: Riley; rlmorel

Honor, Duty, Country.

I would add Family.

These are concepts that are being undermined by the left.

They attack our military and gun owners as if those are the people that bring death.

They don’t understand.

They embrace the death cult of abortion and communism as if their version of killing is more honorable than the altruism of those that fight and die for Liberty.

Honor.

They don’t understand this concept.


31 posted on 02/21/2014 5:06:19 PM PST by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: Grimmy
Also and not insignificant, it was the first battle on what was considered “Japanese” soil.
32 posted on 02/21/2014 5:20:57 PM PST by stylin19a (Obama ----> Fredo smart)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Same with my father. I am certain your father, mine and countless thousands of other American servicemen would not have survived. Nuking Japan saved millions of lives on both sides.


33 posted on 02/21/2014 5:25:21 PM PST by wjcsux ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
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To: stevem

Another error in the Brietbart piece...they use an early photo that identified Henry Hansen as one of the flag-raisers, not Harlan Block. It actually took more than a year to correct that mistake. Hansen actually took part in the first flag-raising, and that ensign was replaced a short time later by larger flag, raised by Strank, Sousley, Gagnon, Hayes, Bradley and Block.

Admiral Nimitz said it best: Iwo was a place where “uncommon valor was a common virtue.”


34 posted on 02/21/2014 5:41:48 PM PST by ExNewsExSpook
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To: Rashputin

Along with being a staging base for P-51s escorting B-29s over Japan, Iwo was also an emergency field for Superforts that were damaged and unable to make it back to their bases on Guam and neighboring islands.

The first battle-damaged B-29 landed on Iwo while the battle was still raging. The aircrew jumped out of the plane, and kissed the ground, happy to be on land and not in the Pacific. A group of Marines that witnessed the celebration shook their heads in disbelief


35 posted on 02/21/2014 5:48:54 PM PST by ExNewsExSpook
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The US gave Iwo back to the Japanese years ago. I was against this as the price we paid for it was too dear.


36 posted on 02/21/2014 5:51:41 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
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To: stylin19a

The Japanese considered Saipan to be their own, and had a decent sized Japanese civilian pop there, iirc.


37 posted on 02/21/2014 5:56:21 PM PST by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: jacquej
Old Glory no longer flies over Suribachi. Since 1968, the Meatball has flown over the island.
38 posted on 02/21/2014 5:58:03 PM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: rlmorel

It is staggering. The casualties of past wars boggle the imagination.

I had an uncle die at Anzio.

I had an uncle that survived Iwo Jima. He never talked about the war...but for some reason a couple of months before he died...he wanted to talk. He talked about how hard the landing was and how almost impossible the invasion was. But they won.

I hung up the phone and cried.


39 posted on 02/21/2014 6:00:12 PM PST by berdie
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Now, for a musical interlude:
40 posted on 02/21/2014 6:08:41 PM PST by Fiji Hill
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