[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Thank you, cote. Very powerful.

I was telling someone this story on Monday:

My dad was part of a medical team working to save wounded Marines in a large shell crater on Iwo; he and another guy were headed out with an empty stretcher, and as they were leaving, they had a little discussion about who would take the front end and who would take the back. They were joking around about it, and they finally agreed who would go first.

They bent down to pick up the stretcher and my dad was knocked to his knees by an exploding mortar shell. The boy (a 19 year-old) on the other end was killed.

It could so easily have been my dad on the other end of that stretcher.

I have great admiration for that 19 year-old. He had a chance to go home a few hours earlier, when he had been wounded in the arm (a "million dollar" injury, they called it). Dad told him to get out of there. Everyone did. He wanted to stay, and insisted on it.

He ended up in one of those graves.

When I think of the hell he surely saw in his short time on Iwo Jima, and ponder that he stayed there voluntarily - the bravery and loyalty in such a young man - it just amazes me.

There were heroes all over that island.