Subject: My Heros
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 Cheesehead, too! Come gather around,
Cheeseheads, 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 has
since 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, 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 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 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 17, 18, and 19 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 18 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 Iraq War 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 at someone else's sacrifice. God
Bless.
REMINDER:
Everyday that you can wake up and put your feet on the ground, it's going to
be a great day.