Flags of our Fathers

[LaneSig]

Going to see the movie in a little while. Let me clarify a couple of things that I said that might have been taken the wrong way.

Yes, all of the men in the picture had interesting back stories before the war. The back story I was referring to about the man in front has to do with some "confusion" and the man's mother - don't want to say more than that; anyone who read the book or saw the movie will know what I meant.

DeltAlum - I wasn't trying to show you up when I mentioned that it was not a 're-staging'. Most people hear 're-staging' and think: Okay, the photographer didn't get the picture taken correctly the first time, let's pretend this is the first time again and let him try and get it right. Go back to MysticCat's pictures and review the last passage that he covered and you will understand why he and I were both pointing out that it was not a restaging.

[jon1856]

Heads Up-The History Channel is running several shows tonight about both the Flag Raising as well as the battle itself.
Just watched a great two hour show on just the flag raising. Great back story on every part of it. Including film and taped interviews with flag raisers, troops, the shooters, as well as family members.

Now doing an inside view of the battle.

Both shows, no doubt will be repeated. Catch them if you have interest in this. Besides TV page, www.historychannel.com should have info.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by DeltAlum

OK, I suppose this is a matter of language. Fact is, though, that the picture is not of the original raising of the flag.

Quite true, but it's an important matter of language. As LaneSig points out, use of the words "staging" or "re-staging" implies that the picture was posed. In light of the historical confusion about this, I was just concerned that calling the raising of the second flag a "restaging" is not only inaccurate, but perpetuates the confusion.

My dad is a (European Theatre) WWII veteran. I'm going home to see him next weekend. I wonder if he would like to see the movie. He's not in good health -- and members of what Tom Brokaw calls "The Greatest Generation" are dying at an increasingly rapid rate. We owe them a lot.

Originally Posted by jon1856

For those who still can, if you have a father, grandfather or uncle of that generation or mine, sit down with them while you can. That is something I am sorry I can not do now.

My dad as well, DeltAlum, although he is gone now.

But we never could get more than the smallest bits of information out of him about the war. He kept some momentos -- the backpack that I carried to school everyday was his army rucksack, and we always had framed on the wall a picture of a German village that his interpreter painted for him -- but other than teaching me little bits of German, he simply wouldn't talk about the war, certainly not in any detail at all. After he died, we found some letters that shed a little bit of light on what life must have been like for him, but that is it.

My experience is that WWII vets fall into two camps -- those that love to talk about it and that keep in touch with their old comrades and those, like my father, who barely acknowledge that it happened.

[RU OX Alum]

my dad's uncle (my greatuncle?) was in the battle of buldge and I guess the rest of Europe too. We know that he killed machine gunners one day. His answer to how many: all of them. He lost count, he killed every emeny he found though. He told me that once, and I don't think I'll ever bring it up again. I didn't bring it up the first time, but I defetly won't ever ask anyone about their experience again unless I sense they want to talk (I heard this story in a group, and I think those types of conversations should be one on one, if they take place at all.)

[DeltAlum]

Some veterans want to talk about their experience -- some just want to forget and move on -- sometimes that's for their own good, I think.

My late uncle (Dad's brother) didn't talk much about his experiences, but after a few beers on day told me the story of how he won the Bronze Star.

He was a corporal in the Infantry in France during WWII. They had converted an anti-aircraft gun into basically a big anti-personal machine gun. One night, a couple of men who were manning the piece were killed and they asked for volunteers to replace them.

My uncle and another guy volunteered and were sitting on the gun in the middle of the night when they heard German speaking voices in the hedge rows and saw some German soldiers coming out of a tree line. He turned to the other volunteer and asked if he knew how to fire the weapon. The other guy said no, he thought my uncle did.

They couldn't figure out how to fire.

The Germans looked around and then went back into the trees and never came back again. My uncle figures that if they had fired the gun, they would have been killed.

An interesting way to win a Bronze Star.

[RU OX Alum]

the most i've been able to piece together is that he or him and his buddies got seperated from their unit or their unit go away from the platoon or something, anyway, he wound behind the enemy, and saw a nest. He knew they didn't see him so he snuk up behind them and noticed another and another...adults in my family who have heard more have told me there were at least around 10 -15 nests with 2-3 people each. That is at least 20people, so no wonder he doesn't talk about it. I'm glad that I'll probably never have to do anything like that. Killing one person would seriously mess me up more than I am, if I had take out 30, I'm pretty sure I'd be gone in the head forever.

[xo_kathy]

My late grandfather wasn't in the war. He was an engineer at Ford so those men didn't get drafted so they could help produce tanks and such for the war (or so I've heard). However, he played a very big part in the war...He was one of the engineers on the Manhattan Project.

I never learned about it until years after he had died when it somehow came up at a family gathering. Apparently he was extremely ashamed of it. The government basically came to the car companies and asked for their brightest engineers, and he was a chosen. He had shown my brother some of the old files he had in his basement at one point. Interestingly, the day of his funeral my brother went to look for them when we got back from the wake - they were gone. We don't know if grandpa had gotten rid of them at some point, or if "someone" else had...I'm such a conspiracy theorist!!!