History from wesupportthevets.com

This has gone around the net for several years and several have taken credit for the content. Here, we present only the story as it was supposedly related by Jim Bradley's son. good reading for all.

"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 people
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
and it was so hard that the ones who did make it ho me never even would
talk to their families about it. 

(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. It was just boys who 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 was one who 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 carried the pain home with him and eventually 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. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a 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, like Ira Hayes, 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. In
Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died.

And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed, without any medication or
help with the pain.

 "When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad
was a hero When I went hom e 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 current War on  Terr orism
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.

God Bless You and God Bless America


 REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.

PS . One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in
DC that is not mentioned here is that if you look at the statue very
closely and count the number of "hands" raising the flag, there are 13. When the man
who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was
the hand of God.
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