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.' 


(James Bradley 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 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 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.. 

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for 
those still in murderous unrest around the world. 

STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at 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. 


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.

(Unknown Author)