greatest generation

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Iwo Jima flag raiser John Bradley with John Wayne during the filming of Wayne’s classic war film, The Sands of Iwo Jima. Bradley, along with Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon, played himself in the movie. His son would go on to write Flags of Our Fathers. Clint Eastwood directed the movie based on the book.

Bradley, a medic and civilian mortician, struggled with PTSD his entire adult life and rarely talked about the war after the film was released. This suffering veteran, directly linked to our country’s greatest war actors, symbolizes the void between Hollywood and the sad realities of war.

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picturesofwar:

This day in history:

Six American soldiers (five Marines and one U.S. Navy corpsman) raise an American flag atop Mount Suribachi, signalling its capture four days into the Battle of Iwo Jima.  

The moment itself was immortalized on film by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal, who later wrote of the event:

Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don’t come away saying you got a great shot. You don’t know.

The triumphant image became one of the most famous images of the entire war, as well as one of the most reproduced photos of all time.

Three of the six flag raisers were killed in combat while on Iwo Jima.

February 23, 1945 - 67 years ago today.

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Imagine landing on this black rock and being shot at from unseen holes in the ground. Pure chaos!

A Lego tribute to the Marines of Iwo Jima. This should be a series…

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My favorite of the Iwo Jima flag raising photos, taken by Jim Rosenthal who famously likened combat photography to “shooting a football game. You never knew what you got on film.” 

The Marines and corpsmen in the photo, their story made famous to today’s generation by the book and subsequent film Flags Of Our Fathers, had already suffered 40% casualties at the company level and more than half cheering in this image would be dead before Iwo Jima was over.

For a brief moment, all of that is aside. These men might as well have been on a Boy Scout excursion with their buddies.

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Authorized Shoulder Insignia of the United States Marine Corps

(Source: ibiblio.org)

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Newly minted Marine lieutenants try on their bars after graduation. Don’t they look proud?!

(Source: womenofwwii.com)

The Battle of Fonte Hill, Guam, 25-26 July 1944 →

Our ammunition was about gone as morning neared. We then fixed bayonets and were prepared to withstand the onslaught, when Major Fraser (it was then about 3 o’clock) volunteered to go down the hill to try and get some tanks to come up at first light.