Flags Of Our Fathers

[38superman]

I went to see Flags of Our Fathers last night.

It was Clint Eastwoods movie about the Marines and Navy corpsman that raised the U.S. flag over Iwo Jima.

It was a moment in History that was witnessed by my grandfather, Herman "Yankee" Burns.

He was a helmsman on a Navy landing craft and was landing Marines on the beach when the flag went up.

Like most men who were there, he would never talk much about the war, at least not to us.

I only found out about it because one of his Navy buddies would come to visit from time to time.

They would break out a bottle of bourbon and talk to each other about the battle.

I was a small child but I would always pull up a chair and listen.

The theme of the movie was that the men that survived were brought back to the states and given the full hero treatment.

The government put them out there as spokesmen to sell war bonds.

They could never understand why anyone would call them heroic because they were just trying to survive.

The horrors of what they saw and the grief over the men that were lost almost drove them insane.

When the movie was over something special happened in the theater.

The credits started to roll and everone left their seats and began to file toward the exits.

Then the pictures of the actual men came on the screen with the names of the actor that played them.

Everyone in the theater stopped in their tracks.

While the pictures of those men were on the screen, not one person moved a muscle or spoke a word.

It was an impromptu moment of silent respect.

I don't think being a hero is about doing something heroic.

It's just about being there and doing what has to be done.

It's about men like "Yankee".

He was almost 40 years old with a wife and three children when he got on a bus, put on a uniform and went off to do what his country asked him to do.

He never knew he was a hero.

I did.

Tony L Shores

Son of a son of a sailor

Edited October 22, 2006 by tlshores

[davidball]

Thanks for sharing this, Tony. We who have benefited from the service of men like your grandfather can never hear enough about what they did for us.

[tightloop]

Another reminder of why they were/are the Greatest Generation....

[Viggen]

Didn't he do another army or marine movie a while back, Pork Chop Hill or something like that? That, I think was about the time of the invasion of Granada. He played an old Sgt and I think he directed.

He is a pretty good director.

[Run n Gun]

My uncle was killed by a bullet to the head half way up Mt. Suribachi. My Dad and Uncle Leo went to join up on the same day. Leo wanted the Navy and Dad wanted the Marines so, of course, Leo wound up as a Marine and Dad spent the war in the foundry of a sub-tender.

The book was a father's day present a couple of years ago, it's a superb "read". I just wish my Dad was still alive to have read it. I think he'd of liked it too.

I'm a little hesitant to see the movie. If it follows the book and if it's historically accurate then it'll be great. But it seems like most people are more interested in making a "movie" than telling the real story. And if ever there was a topic that didn't need MORE drama...

Ed

[Nik Habicht]

Didn't he do another army or marine movie a while back, Pork Chop Hill or something like that? That, I think was about the time of the invasion of Granada. He played an old Sgt and I think he directed.

He is a pretty good director.

You're thinking of Heartbreak Ridge, 1986.

[davidball]

Didn't he do another army or marine movie a while back, Pork Chop Hill or something like that? That, I think was about the time of the invasion of Granada. He played an old Sgt and I think he directed.

He is a pretty good director.

You're thinking of Heartbreak Ridge, 1986.

Eastwood played Gunnery Sgt. Tom Highway . . . classic character.

[dajarrel]

Eastwood played Gunnery Sgt. Tom Highway . . . classic character.

This was the movie where Sgt. Highway (Eastwood) introduced the non-military world to the term "Cluster F..k"

I was 10 years out of the Navy at that time and I laughed at the universal application of that phrase. It doesn't just happen in the military, upper manangement in most any large company has the same disrespect for their employees.

FWIW

dj