Iwo

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Watch here: US Marines:

74 years ago today, Marines on Iwo Jima raised the flag atop Mount Suribachi.

Semper Fidelis.

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5:00 AM - 23 Feb 2019

"By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully."--Admiral Nimitz

President Reagan, Feb. 19, 1985: "Today Iwo Jima is remembered with other names like Saratoga, the Alamo, Gettysburg -- remembered, not simply because Americans were again conspicuously gallant in battle, but because our sons were called upon to endure unspeakable hardship for the sake of freedom. Every one of you present today, and all of you 40 years ago, have a special place in our nation's heart, reserved only for the few in every generation called upon to sacrifice themselves so that a great nation's ideals of freedom and peace may live and prosper and endure. The manner of your performance -- as captured in Joe Rosenthal's photo of your flag-raising at Mount Suribachi -- remains a beacon, indeed a birthright, for America's young people and for every future American. The other day, I came across a description of Iwo written by the then-Private First Class Russell Werts. And it ended in the following note: ``. . . our troopship started to pull away from Iwo and head for Guam. As I stood by the rail and watched the little island fade in the distance, a feeling of loneliness came over me. It was as if a part of me was left behind, as if an Iowa farm boy was waving goodbye. We would never meet again. Somewhere in that jagged jungle of rocks, he forever walked with the ghosts of Iwo.'"

Another Fly-By

An Army chaplain on Iwo Jima, Easter, 1945:

"He has risen. With all due reverence, we apply these words to our beloved dead.

There are too many air call wings encrusted with the stain of their owners’ life blood, too many marine trousers upon the graves, too many symbols of American dead – Catholic, Protestant, Jew. Together, they huddled in foxholes or crouched in the bloody sands under the fury of enemy guns here on Iwo Jima. Together they practiced virtue, patriotism, love of country, love of you and of me. Together they stand before the greatest soldier of them all – Jesus Christ, to receive the token of our triumph. For Christ has said: “Greater love than this no man hath then that he lay down his life for his friends.”

And so our beloved dead have gone from the world of hate to the world of eternal love.

The heritage they have left us, the vision of a new world, made possible by the common bond that united them in the drudgery of recruit training or here in the chaos of bursting shouts. Their only hope: that this unity will endure.”

And so our dead have risen to glory.