Free Republic

A top FDNY official says it’s “most definitely” acceptable to exclude a white firefighter from a ceremonial unit based solely on his skin color... Cecilia Loving, the department’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, is defending a decision to kick Lt. Daniel McWilliams — one of three firefighters in the iconic 9/11 Ground Zero flag-raising photo — off a color-guard procession so it would be all-black. Loving testified at a state Divsion of Human Rights trial on McWilliam’s complaint that he was the victim of racial bias. When McWilliams showed up at a 2017 memorial mass to honor deceased members of...

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Marine Corps says it has begun investigating whether it mistakenly identified one of the men shown raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima in one of the iconic images of World War II after two amateur history buffs began raising questions about the picture. The Marines announced its inquiry more than a year after Eric Krelle, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Stephen Foley, of Wexford, Ireland, began raising doubts about the identity of one man. In November 2014, the Omaha World-Herald published an extensive story about their claims and Saturday was the first to report the...

TRIANGLE, Va., Feb. 19, 2010 – Dozens of veterans of the Battle of Iwo Jima and their families gathered at the National Museum of the Marine Corps here today to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the iconic World War II battle. The battle for Iwo Jima – the first U.S. attack on Japanese soil – is memorialized worldwide by the famous Joe Rosenthal photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. Three of the six later were killed in battle. “Iwo Jima was not the bloodiest or the longest battle” of World War...

The centre of Marjah looked battered and abandoned yesterday as soldiers raised a makeshift Afghan flag after days of intense fighting between the Taleban and US Marines. The symbolic gesture was designed to demonstrate Afghan government control but commanders acknowleged that the fighting was far from over and the local population were nowhere to be seen. Troops in the town centre said that the insurgents had retreated to the western edge of their Helmand stronghold, where US and Afghan troops are still waiting to dislodge them. In Loy Chari, which means main square, in central Marjah, shops were reduced to...

ARLINGTON, Va. — Sixty-four years ago on Feb. 23, 1945, U.S. Marines stormed the sands of Iwo Jima and raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi. In honor of the 64th anniversary of that historic event, dozens of spectators and Marines, including nine individuals who fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima, gathered at the Marine Corps War Memorial today for a flag-raising ceremony. One of the Iwo Jima veterans present at the event acted as a forward observer during the battle, calling for and guiding indirect artillery fire from the island. “The [flag-raising] brings back so many memories,” said...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6, 2009 – U.S. Marines raised the American flag yesterday during the dedication ceremony for the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker declared “a new era” for Iraq and the Iraqi-U.S. relationship. U.S. Marines raise the American flag during the dedication ceremony for the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Jan. 5, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Derren J. Mazza  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and almost 1,000 invited guests looked on as the embassy’s Marine security detachment...

NATO claimed victory Tuesday in the four-day battle for Musa Qala as the Afghanistan flag was raised over what had been the only town held by the Taliban. NATO military leaders promised that the town in Helmand Province will get the decent government and economic development that was not provided before the Taliban moved in months ago, The Times of London reported. "We have a plan ready, and we will want to demonstrate that people will be better off with the Afghan government than they were with the Taliban," said Lt. Col. Richard Easton, a spokesman for the British military....

At Fort Snelling Friday, the nation bid farewell to a true World War II hero. Marine Chuck Lindberg was laid to rest at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. The thundering jet fighters and some vintage WWII planes flew overhead to pay tribute. And it was well deserved. Lindberg was the last survivor of the first flag-raising on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi. But his moment was overshadowed by a second flag-raising. He spent a lifetime correcting the record. Still, on this Friday at Fort Snelling, there was no doubt about history's record. During the ceremony one of Lindberg's daughters, Diane Steiger said...

RICHFIELD, Minn. - Charles W. Lindberg, one of the U.S. Marines who raised the first American flag over Iwo Jima during World War II, has died. He was 86.

RICHFIELD, Minn. (AP) The last survivor of the first American flag-raising over Iwo Jima during World War Two has died. Charles Lindberg of Richfield, Minnesota, was 86. He grew up in Grand Forks. Lindberg died yesterday at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina (ee-DYE'-nuh), according to the director of the funeral home that's handling arrangements. Lindberg spent decades explaining that it was his patrol, not the one captured in the famous photograph by Abe Rosenthal of The Associated Press, that raised the first flag over the island. In the late morning of February 23rd, 1945, Lindberg fired his flame-thrower into enemy...

Charles "Chuck" Lindberg, the last surviving flagraiser at Iwo Jima, passed away Sunday morning at Fairview Southdale Hospital. Lindberg helped raise the first American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima. His accomplishment was later overshadowed when a replacement flag was raised a few hours later. He was honored in February 2006 at a military ceremony marking the anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. He also recently attended a groundbreaking ceremony on Memorial Day at the site of a new veterans memorial in Richfield, Minn. Lindberg's service and legacy as the last living flagraiser was the subject of an...

TOKYO (AP) - A U.S. search team on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima is zeroing in on a cave where a Marine combat photographer who filmed the iconic flag-raising 62 years ago is believed to have been killed in battle nine days later, officials told The Associated Press Friday. The seven-member search team is looking for the remains of Sgt. William H. Genaust, who was killed in action after filming the flag-raising atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi. The team is also searching for other U.S. troops killed in the battle - one of the fiercest and most symbolic of...

Photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal picture of six World War II fighting men raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima, died Sunday. He was 94. Rosenthal died of natural causes at an assisted living facility in the San Francisco suburb of Novato, said his daughter, Anne Rosenthal. "He was a good and honest man, he had real integrity," she said. His photo, taken Feb. 23, 1945, for The Associated Press, became the model for the Iwo Jima Memorial near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The memorial, dedicated in 1954 and known officially as...

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...

"D + 4 on Iwo Jima was Friday,February 23,1945.At about 10:30 hours I was standing on the broad rim of the crater on top of Suribachi looking up at our colors snapping in the breeze. Suddenly something extraordinary happened.We could clearly hear cheering from the Marines in combat on the plain of Iwo below us.They had spotted the flag and as the word spread more Marines joined in cheering our flag crowning Suribachi some 500 feet above.Soon the boats along the landing beaches and the ships at sea joined in blowing horns and whistles.It was a remarkable moment in Marine...

USS Alfred 24-gun ship. Port stern quarter. Alfred (formerly the Black Prince) commissioned in 1775. The first battleship ever owned by the United States of America, the U. S. S. Alfred was commissioned at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 23 December 1775. The ship was purchased from the British Royal Navy where it was named the Black Prince. (This wooden ship-of-the-line is not to be confused with the ironclad Black Prince built in 1861.) Lieutenant John Paul Jones commanded the USS Alfred and he received the Alfred into the US Navy on 03 December 1775 by hoisting the Grand Union Flag. After...

Press Outraged Over Staged Flagraising March 3rd, 1945 IWO JIMA (Routers) Controversy has erupted among the press corps in the last few days as news has spread that the now-famous picture of the "victorious" flag raising over Iwo Jima a couple weeks ago was staged. Many believe that, as the huge number of casualties mounted in the ill-fated and pointless invasion of this tiny island, the Roosevelt administration, desperate for a bit of pro-war propaganda, arranged to have the photo taken for dissemination to the world's news services. It has been revealed that the picture was actually of a "recreation"...

Monday, July 18, 2005 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News ARTICLE SUMMARY Macedonia passed a law allowing the display of the Turkish flag in areas where the Turks form the majority, the Anatolia news agency reported over the weekend. ARTICLE Macedonia passed a law allowing the display of the Turkish flag in areas where the Turks form the majority, the Anatolia news agency reported over the weekend. Parliament on Friday approved the measure by 50 votes to four after two weeks of fierce debate.

A crowd of people loyal to the People's Republic of China raised split-finger victory signs as their one red-and-gold flag found a home on a small lane. "I feel real proud," said David Lee, 85 When Lee and others tried to raise the mainland Chinese flag in the same location about 20 years ago, an angry group of anti-communists tore it down and burned it. More than 100 people gathered to watch the flag rise to the strains of "The March of the Volunteers," the Chinese national anthem. Many had come from a demonstration in front of the Japanese Embassy,...

For Pics, etc. see... http://www.sftt.org/ DefenseWatch "The Voice of the Grunt" 02-23-2005 Guest Column: History Overlooked Iwo Jima’s First Flag By Raymond Jacobs Both the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center and Leatherneck magazine have published and continue to distribute incorrect information about the identities of the Marines present at the first flag-raising on Iwo Jima 60 years ago today. How this came about has its beginnings in the well-documented fact that the story and photographs of the first flag-raising were hushed up for many years on orders from the highest level of the Marine Corps. Most of the Marines and...