By James Bradley

 Texan who joined Marines with his high school football buddies.  Seventh Day Adventist religious beliefs prohibited fighting but he went anyway  His mother, Belle, recognized her son’s photo in the paper despite misidentification.  Mike Strank’s second in command; he took over leadership of the unit after Mike was killed. He died hours later.

 Navy medic  Won Navy Cross for valor  Wounded in both legs  Went home to be a mortician  His son wrote the book

 Raised on tobacco farm in Kentucky  Father died when he was nine; he was an only child  Died days before evacuation  Mother screamed so loud when she got the news of her son’s death, neighbors heard it clear across the fields

 Pima Indian from Arizona  Earned distinction as paratrooper  Quiet disposition, greatly respected Sergeant Mike Strank  Did not want any part of photo tour  Became a heavy drinker, froze to death.  Told Harlon Block’s family of his raising the flag.

 Grew up only son of a widow in Manchester, New Hampshire  He carried the flag up Mt. Suribachi  He saw very little combat, he was a runner  The youngest survivor, he enjoyed the fame from the photograph more than anyone else.

 A Marine’s Marine  Born in Czechoslovakia, grew up in mining town in Pennsylvania  At 27, he was the oldest of the flag raisers, best known for his leadership.  Died by friendly fire. Buried at Arlington National Cemetary

 Date: February 19, 1945  Place: Iwo Jima  Mission: Deprive Japanese of Early Warning System Obtain Landing Strip for Damaged Bombers SAVE AMERICAN LIVES

General Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s Plan: Fight to last man. No one leaves island alive. Heavily fortify island with extensive caves and bunkers Lieutenant General Holland Smith’s Plan: Bombard island for 84 days before invading Amphibious landing of 20,000 troops Take Mount Suribachi first and progress north until the island was secured.

 It took four days to secure Mount Suribachi  It took another 31 days to secure the entire island  This was the only battle in WWII in which American casualties outnumbered Japanese: US=27,000, Japan=20,000

 Photographer for the Leatherneck magazine.  Photographed the first flag raising.  First flag was smaller than second one, and had historical significance due to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal’s comment, “…the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years.” It was summoned down as a souvenier.

Here’s one for all time” John Bodkin AP Photo Editor On the way up for the second flag raising, Rosenthal met Lowery on his way down. Lowery advised the photographers to keep going up because the summit was an excellent place to take pictures. As the six Marines raised the flag, Rosenthal swing his camera up and snapped the photograph without using the view finder. He did not know what he got.

 Following the second flag raising, Rosenthal had the Marines of Easy Company pose for a group shot, the “gung-ho” picture.  A few days after the famous picture was taken, Rosenthal was asked if he posed the picture.  Mistaking “the picture” for the “gung-ho” shot, he said yes, and was forever plagued with fabricating history.  Despite the controversy, the picture won a Pulitzer Prize.

The Iwo Jima Photograph becomes the symbol for the 7 th war bond drive Rene Gagnon is asked to identify the Marines in the photo Ira Hayes threatens to kill Gagnon if he identifies him, but Gagnon buckles to Presidential pressure and reveals Hayes anyway. Gagnon misidentifies Harlon Block as Sergeant Henry O. “Hank” Hansen, who participated in the first flag raising. Hansen died on Iwo Jima. The bond tour raised $26.3 billion, twice the tour’s goal.

 Both flags housed in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia  The Medal of Honor was awarded to 27 servicemen as a result of this struggle, fourteen posthumously. This accounts for over a third of the Medals of Honor awarded during the entire Pacific War.

 Erection of the memorial, which was designed by Horace W. Peaslee, was begun in September It was officially dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 10, 1954, the 179th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps.

What to look for

 Author’s Purpose  Nostalgia  Rhetorical Questions

 James Bradley knows little about his father’s experience “Happiest moment of his life”  The Bradley family travels to Iwo Jima to visit the site after his research Bradley speaks about each raiser

 Bradley uses questions to pose questions to the readers  Creates feelings of timelessness by tying together images of present and past

Chapter 2

 Mothers  Religion  Personification  Characterization

 Bradley  Sousley  Block  Hayes  Gagnon  Strank

 Religion plays an important role in each of their life’s Bradley and Strank are devout Catholics Block is a Seventh-Day Adventist Hayes’s mother was an important figure in the church

 Mother’s influences can be seen as well Bradley: his mother is heavily involved in his Catholic learning after his sister’s death Strank’s faith is also tied to his mother Sousley is extremely close to his mother after the deaths of his brother and father Block’s mother knows he is a flag raiser and influences his beliefs Hayes mother taught him the bible and made sure he had an education Gagnon his close to his mother following the divorce of his parents

 Connected to America as a whole “All of them together illuminated a great deal that was wonderful and innocent in an America that was soon to leave its own childhood forever” “The hollows swallow up people, even history

 Uses interviews to create their characters and describe them