Gunner's Blog

The piece below was received via email from a friend down in Lousiana. Let us all endeavor to remember the true meaning of Memorial Day.

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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.

Y'ou 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.

FORT IRWIN, California, Wednesday, May 25, 2005 . . .
The engaging 7-foot-tall Bear of Disney Channel's "Bear in the Big Blue House" made a special visit to warm hearts of kids at a preschool on Fort Irwin's U.S. Army Base (near Barstow) today. The base is the nation's principle training environment for soldiers deployed to Iraq.

Bear also visited one of the children in their home on the base as part of the new nutrition and healthy lifestyle series, "Breakfast with Bear," premiering during the Playhouse Disney block in June on Disney Channel.

Photos feature the Emmy-Award winning Bear (Disney Channel's "Bear in the Big Blue House" and the new upcoming short-form series "Breakfast with Bear") with U.S. Army Spc. Holly Jensen and children of Army personnel at the base's Childhood Development Center.

This is how it really is...
Subject: Operation Matador
Semper Fi, Marines:

This is another combat report from Col Bob Chase, G-3, 2dMarDiv in Iraq.
Right from the horse's mouth!

Was talking to Gino and he asked for some details on the MATADOR fight. Figured, by now since many of you might have caught some of the interviews, you'd like to hear, "the rest of the story..."

Matador is now officially over, supposedly, they were going to fight our way back and "destroy" us - guess they missed the turn at the dairy queen. We are back and the final tally was Good Guys - 125+ enemy dead, many more wounded, and 39 detainees of some significant value. The bad guys, who talk a real good game - 9 Killed (6 in the one Amtrak) and 30 wounded (most will return to duty). Not a bad weeks' work.

As we have said, our intent was to make ourselves big, by leveraging our firepower and mobility. This area was a real sh... hole for AMZ criminals. We knew it, 1st Division knew it, but working it on a regular basis was tough. We kept some recon there and got the timing pretty well, brought up a bridging unit from the Army in Baghdad, then went across in the middle of the night (that was probably the only part that didn't go on sked - the bank gradient was poorly assessed) but we had near and far-side security already in and a blocking position near the Syrian Border.

The enemy figured out after about 4 hours that we were there in force. They came down with about 100 fighters (no, scratch that - they were TARGETS) and made the poor decision to take on a battalion in open ground. They with drew - we went after them into a place called Ubaydi. Many mounted boats and tried to escape N, we pushed Air and the Cobras sunk a bunch of trash - barges that night. Meanwhile, we continued to push west across the river. Our far-side units started to see pockets of insurgents move to key areas to emplace mines/IEDs. They came out, snipers took them out; their friends came for the bodies; they, joined them on the deck - permanently.

The force started getting the tanks and LAVs across later than we had hoped; but when they did! Our first casualties came at a high-rise where the enemy had prepared positions; a platoon moved in under fire, 2 Marines, a SSGT and a LCPL were first in the hatch and received a burst of MG fire. As the unit assumed they were dead (no additional fire/no one came out), they lit up the house and dropped it with a coupla 500-pounders. As we moved to recover our Marines (NONE LEFT BEHIND), we discovered that the LCPL, though wounded was still alive (he is serious, but stable). Unfortunately the SSGT had taken a round to the grape and had been killed by the initial burst.

We moved on; portions of the task force moving along known rat-lines and others working intell developed in the cities of Ramana and Karabila. Fighting was sporadic, intense, and one-sided in outcome. We followed individuals into buildings, we leveled the buildings; all night, every night, Marine Air had eyes - up and shooters on-station - talk about a guardian angel! Each night we re-assessed, looked at the intel and developed the next target sets. We stayed down there until a few days ago; then shifted to a series of caves in the north.

The caves were on an escarpment and rumors abound about whether these were, Bin-Laden like caves answer no, mostly small caches and some protection from about everything but a hellfire with a laser designator. We exploited some and closed most of them permanently. The enemy propaganda talked a lot about how they were going to kill us as we retreated, etc.they showed pictures of devastation in Al Qaim (caused by an intramural fight between the tribes and foreign fighters, no less) and blamed the Americans. Al Jazeera called to speak to me and interviewed me twice on air - yes, I called the enemy cowards, again, that hid behind women and children in the cities and caused their death by their cowardice. Played well, enemy swore they had captured/killed the "enemy commander." Went on again last night to ridicule them for their lies and continued fear of death, told them the destruction of AQ was evidence that, the "noble tribes of Iraq also reject those that deface their holy places and dishonor their dead." We'll see if a wanted poster appears tomorrow - bad news is, they still didn't get pissed off enough to come out and play.

We went back across the river without incident, decided to "poke a stick" in Ubaydi (where the big fight was), just ONE MORE TIME before we left, NOTHING, they wanted no part of these Marines again. We're all back at base camps and Forward operating Bases, maintaining, cleaning, talking sh..., and prepping for the next smackdown!

NBC interviewed me again, last night, good stuff, but they harped on the casualties. I told them it was war; they wanted to know if a whole squad was killed in the track. As I told them a squad's worth of Marines were killed/hurt (6 KIA,14 WIA) but it was NOT the catastrophic loss of a squad (it was a HQ track). NBC wanted to know how to refer to them, as a squad, company, etc. I told them, pretty bluntly, "refer to them for what they will always be - US MARINES!" They continued to push (I was starting to become a bit agitated), they wanted to know how we considered this a success with the deaths - I nearly lost it - and how would we remember them, would there be a ceremony? You know what happens when I get into this mode - thought you might appreciate the answer:

We can never replace a fellow Marine or best friend but I can attest that he died doing what we all hope to be doing as Marines, they were advancing, leading, and setting the example - they were being MARINES! It may not matter in the grand scheme of things to anyone but us, but we are singularly proud that we have and know Marines that fought and died like these. We remember and memorialize them and keep them alive every single time we put on this uniform -- we are just honored to wear the same eagle, globe, and anchor as these warrior/heroes. We don't make policy, we don't decide on the fight, but we do fight and win. And when we win, it is because every one of these Marines fight with us in sprit - and we will not, we cannot let them down. To we Marines, Semper Fidelis is more than a motto - it was to them, and to us who were privileged to fight with them, a way of life.

Not sure that will get on the tube. Unfortunate, because I think we should all be such Marines when our time comes.

S/F, Bob

SA 23 FEB 91

Dad
I guess by now you know I’m not at FLEET 15 HOSP. I was going to leave a message where I was going but all I knew was north. It took a period of 4 days to get where I am now. I’ll tell you all about that later, that’s a story in itself. I am with another hospital, next to Kansas and Iowa and the Nebraska territory. Planes and choppers buzz overhead around the clock, the thunder rumbles on and the bass echoes through you chest like on amp. Last night while I was on duty, right in front of me the sky was on fire. Last night the Iraqis lit the oil pots. The two nights before, the sky was black velvet here, and the stars shone like diamonds. I stepped out of the ward to look at the beauty; it was something to see as the thunder pounded. I heard a sound. I climbed atop the birm. Now I’ve been proud of myself, I’ve been hard enough that I know where I am. I’ve seen wounded, I saw a young Marine with no arms and one leg. I hear the sounds around me and I just take it in stride. But as I crested this birm, there on another birm appears, 50 m away, under this sky, silhouetted by the flashes in the North, stood one man and the sound of “Amazing Grace” pierced my soul from this solo bagpipe. I just can’t describe the emotions that drowned my existence. I looked around and all over stood others atop 10 feet birms everywhere to hear the pipes. As he finished I hollered out “Danny Boy” and he played that, then finished with the “Marines Hymn”. As I and everyone returned to Shelter, I thought “Are we crazy?” we stood atop birms everywhere for 15 minutes in the hell, but my spirit flew higher then ever and I returned to my shelter. protected from the sights and sounds. I get some cockeyed looks sometimes, with all this; I still find something to smile about. Even now with the northern night sky on fire, and G-Day hours away, making what causalities we have received few, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone right now. I know my job and do it, and what I don’t know, I must face and deal with, there’s no time to hide. For now I am dealing with it. Like I said, I would wish this on no one, and I won’t trade places with anyone. But there is not a night I don’t pray, “Let this be the war to end all wars”. I wrote a prayer that I say at the end of my prayer before I sleep

As I sleep in this world of war

I pray the Eagle higher soars

And if the call should come for me

I pray I gave my very best

So in peace I can safely rest

And the Lord take my soul with Thee.

Got to go for now
Mike
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Here is one that I got from a family whose son was in Gulf War 1. Pretty moving, particularly the prayer at the end.

As of this writing, the son is back in Iraq, and the father is there also, working for a contractor.

Gunner