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Flags of Our Fathers

The movie is now out and I haven’t seen it but its more than 50-50 odds that Hollywood butchered the book.  If you haven’t read the book FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, you should.  One lesson that is driven home (perhaps this is a leap on my part), but I came away with the strong feeling that China, Japan, Korea, India, et al, would not be eating the industrial lunch of our fathers and their parents.  Our generation is not quite made of the stuff that spawned us.  A few excerpts below from the son of one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima in February 1945 on Mount Suribachi… http://www.answers.com/battle%20of%20iwo%20jima

 “After studying in Japan I (the son) was convinced I was an expert on Pacific history.  At a Thanksgiving dinner at our family home in 1975, I was only too happy to enlighten my father (an Iwo Jima vet) and the assembled family as to the “real” reason we fought Japan in WW II; American insensitivity to Japanese culture and FDR’s severing of their oil lines forced Japan – an industrial beached whale – to attack Pearl Harbor in self-defense.

 The 350,000 “liberated” victims of the Rape of Nanking and the millions who perished in the Asian Holocaust might have taken some exception to this point of view.  But I was entranced with it, and confidently explained to the veteran of Iwo Jima seated across the table from me that it was his side that was to blame.  Japan was the victim. 

It would be years before I read of the atrocities the Japanese military machine had perpetrated on millions of people; years before I discovered that the “self-defense” rationale I was spouting off about had been rejected by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal as bogus.

 John Bradley (the vet father) was fifty two in 1975, and he knew a hell of a lot more about why we got into America’s war than I did.  But rather than challenge me, he just nodded.

 He was secure … He could afford to nod in silent understanding and hand me another slice of turkey;  IN RETURN FOR THE SLICE OF BALONEY I HAD JUST HANDED HIM.”

 …. “later I learned about how the Japanese military referred to their conscripts…”issen gorin” meaning “one yen, five rin….the cost of mailing a draft notice postcard –less than a penny”…

 ….three quotes from the book ..

 . “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.” (Harry Truman)

 . “ The inscription at the gravesite on Iwo Jima…

. “ Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won” (Duke of  Wellington)

Mickey Moulder

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