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13 Hands
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Topic: 13 Hands (Read 6001 times)
Paul
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13 Hands
«
on:
April 16, 2007, 04:19:13 AM »
>>>TALE 0F SIX BOYS & 13 HANDS
>>>
>>>Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eight 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 headedtowards the memorial. I noticed a sol itary 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 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 a ll 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 t o 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 Sargeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all the se 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 islandwith 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 H ayes. 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 ; m orning. 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'msorry, 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, s o 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 forus 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 an d al so 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.
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"...and I--I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." Robert Frost
PigPen
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #1 on:
April 16, 2007, 05:43:25 PM »
That's some powerful stuff.
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wpruitt
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #2 on:
April 16, 2007, 08:18:09 PM »
Absolutely awesome
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"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
Dtopford
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #3 on:
April 17, 2007, 05:57:17 PM »
awsome read thank you
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MR. CLEAN
All the Ladies wanta Know me, All the Fellas' wanta be me... 'Cause I'm Money
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #4 on:
April 17, 2007, 06:48:14 PM »
Thats some powerful stuff. Its also a overlooked fact that that scene was the Second flag raising on Iwo Jima. The first, it was photographed and made the cover of the LeatherNecks Magazine.
To all the Hero's, and those who made it back,
For those who paid for our freedom, The Tole the Highest Price of all.
For the True Patriots,
Raise the Flag High, and allow it to Fly in the Breeze, as the souls that died for the Red White, that pay for our right to be Free.
God Bless our soldiers & Emergency Personal.
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Peace
KALBO
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #5 on:
April 30, 2007, 07:14:58 PM »
Incredible read, thanks much for posting it Paul.
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TXFergie
Sly Jr.
Posts: 41
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #6 on:
April 30, 2007, 08:25:41 PM »
I have read that before awhile back and it gets me each time I read it. As a veteran myself, thank you to all of those who have served, are serving, and who may be on their way to serve. We owe them our support and prayers each day.
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wpruitt
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #7 on:
May 01, 2007, 04:01:18 PM »
That piece, Paul, is just about capable of getting rid of dry eyes. Moves me every time I read it.
Recently learned that a young man from our church is still at Pearl Harbor - on board the Arizona. I remember his sister used to always get emotional around December 7 - but she always did a brief bit a church around that date to insure he would not be forgotten.
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"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
CDN Meathead
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #8 on:
May 30, 2007, 07:13:21 PM »
WOW. It's like I keep telling my troops whenever they start to question thier calling and I forget where I originally heard it but..... Freedom is never FREE, there is always a price to be paid.
Bravo Zulu and that must have been quite and honour.
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tomgallagher
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Re: 13 Hands
«
Reply #9 on:
May 30, 2007, 09:06:16 PM »
I've stood over the Arizona at the memorial at Pearl Harhor and watched as bubbles still kept coming up from her after all these years. Very upsetting, very upsetting. God bless them all.
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