Our Brave Soldiers

I do not know the originator I recieved this as and email from one of my cousins as a reminder of Veterans Day …
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>
> Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade
> class from Clinton, WI, where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I
> greatly enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some
> special memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable.
>
> On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial.
> This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of
> the most famous photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers
> raising the American flag at the top of a rocky hill [Mount Suribachi]on
> the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW-II.
>
> Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed
> towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
> statue, and as I got closer he asked, “Where are you guys from?”
>
> I told him that we were from Wisconsin. “Hey, I’m a cheesehead, too!
> Come gather around, cheeseheads, I’ll tell you a story.”
>
> (James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the
> memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to
> his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he
> saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received
> his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to
> tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D. C.,
> but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that
> night.)
>
> When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. Here are his
> words that night.
>
> My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on
> that statue, and I just wrote a book called, “Flags of Our Fathers,” which
> is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story
> of the six boys you see behind me.
>
> Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is
> Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in
> the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They
> were off to play another type of game. A game called “war.” But it didn’t
> turn out to be a game.
>
> Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don’t
> say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand
> in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to
> know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.
> (he pointed to the statue)
>
> “You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you
> took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the
> webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph … a photograph of
> his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was
> scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima, boys, not
> old men.
>
> The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was sergeant Mike
> Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called
> him the “old man” because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike
> would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say, ‘Let’s go kill
> some Japanese’, or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew he was talking to
> little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I say, and I’ll get you
> home to your mothers.’
>
> The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
> Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House
> with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a hero.’ He told
> reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the
> island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’ So you take your
> class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing
> everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of
> your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of
> horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32
> ….. ten years after this picture was taken.
>
> The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop,
> Kentucky. A fun-lovin’ hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70,
> told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop
> General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t
> get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’
> Yes, he was a fun-lovin’ hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the
> age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it
> went to the Hilltop General Store; a barefoot boy ran that telegram up to
> his mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into
> the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter mile away.
>
> The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
> Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until
> 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s
> producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little
> kids to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in
> Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when
> he is coming back.’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually,
> he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell’s soup. But
> we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk
> to the press. You see, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero.
>
> Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, ’cause they are in a photo and on a
> monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from
> Wisconsin was a caregiver. On Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as
> they died. And when boys died on Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in
> pain.
>
> When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a
> hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, ‘I
> want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who
> did not come back. Did NOT come back.’
>
> So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima,
> and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo
> Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is
> giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.”
>
> Suddenly, the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag
> sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the
> heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero.
> Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
> nonetheless. We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious
> world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us
> never forget from the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War and all the wars
> in between, that sacrifice was made for our freedom.
>
> Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for
> those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP and thank God for
> being alive and being free at someone else’s sacrifice. God Bless.
>
>
> REMINDER: Everyday that you wake up free and put your feet on the floor, is going to be a good day.