I received this as an email. I had to share. Thanks to our Military Brothers and Sisters .Now and then.
Six Boys And Thirteen Hands...
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 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 cheese
head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a
story.'
(It was James Bradley who 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 had 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, DC, 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 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 home 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 of them who lived to walk 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,
drowned in a very shallow puddle, 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 combat caregiver. On Iwo Jima he
probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died on 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 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 current
War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made
for our freedom...please pray for our troops.
Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and
also ...please pray for our troops still in murderous places around
the world.
STOP TODAY and thank God for being alive and being free due
to someone else's sacrifice.
God Bless You and God Bless America .
REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to
be a great day.
The Constitution - Article 1 Section 8
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions
WWII was the last declared war. But we have had 6 "wars" since then. Congress just refused to declare them as such. But they appropriated money for them for much longer than two years. Why did they NOT declare them as wars if they were that important. They certainly cost us enough young boys. There were also three US "interventions." A nice word for sticking our nose in where it doesn't belong! Again - why?
WWII - when are we going to hold Congress accountable? This didn't start with Obama! Congress threw the Constitution out long ago and the other two branches marched right along! And we sat on our behinds and complained about it. And we are STILL just talking about what we are going to do! How long will it take?
Replies
The Republicans didn't get what We The People said, in Nov 2010. They go on doing what they have always done when they are in power. Until we have a third party that is big enough and loud enough to make a difference, we will always have the same old thing.
Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
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