by Michael T. Powers (reproduced with permission)
Each year my video production company is
hired to go to Washington, D.C. with the eighth grade class from
Clinton, Wisconsin 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 men raising the
American flag at the top of Mount Surabachi 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, "What's your name and where are you guys
from?
I told him that my name was Michael Powers
and that we were from Clinton, Wisconsin.
"Hey, I'm a Cheesehead, too! Come gather
around Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story."
James Bradley just happened to be in
Washington, D.C. to speak at the memorial the following day. He
was there that night to say good-night to his dad, who had
previously passed away, but whose image is part of the statue.
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 from 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 twenty-one, 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 seventeen, eighteen,
and nineteen 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 eighteen
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 twenty-four. When Mike would motivate
his boys in training camp, he didn't say, "Let's go kill the
enemy" 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 twenty-seven 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 twenty-seven 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 thirty-two, 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 Epson salts. Those cows crapped all night."
Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy.
Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of nineteen. 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 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 Kronkite'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 right there 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 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
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, 7000 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 in his own
eyes, but a hero nonetheless.
