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Flags of Our Fathers Kindle Edition

by James Bradley (Author), Ron Powers (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.7 2,037 ratings

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.

Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.

To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: “The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back. ”

Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from them. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.

One of those young Americans was John Bradley, a Navy corpsman who a few days before had braved enemy mortar and machine-gun fire to administer first aid to a wounded Marine and then drag him to safety. For this act of heroism Bradley would receive the Navy Cross, an award second only to the Medal of Honor.

Bradley, who died in 1994, never mentioned his feat to his family. Only after his death did Bradley's son James begin to piece together the facts of his father's heroism, which was but one of countless acts of sacrifice made by the young men who fought at Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers recounts the sometimes tragic life stories of the six men who raised the flag that February day--one an Arizona Indian who would die following an alcohol-soaked brawl, another a Kentucky hillbilly, still another a Pennsylvania steel-mill worker--and who became reluctant heroes in the bargain. A strongly felt and well-written entry in a spate of recent books on World War II, Flags gives a you-are-there depiction of that conflict's horrible arenas--and a moving homage to the men whom fate brought there. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Say "Iwo Jima," and what comes to mind? Most likely a famous photograph from 1945: six tired, helmeted Marines, fresh from a long, terrifying and bloody battle, work together to raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi. Bradley's father, John, was one of the six. In this voluminous and memorable work of popular history mixed with memoir, Bradley and Powers (White Town Drowsing) reconstruct those Marines' experiences, and those of their Pacific Theater comrades. The authors begin with the six soldiers' childhoods. Soon enough, bombs have fallen on Pearl Harbor, and by May '43 the young men have become proud leathernecks. Bradley and Powers incorporate accounts of specific battles, like "Hellzapoppin Ridge" (Bougainville, December '43), and pull in corps life and lore, from the tough-minded to the slightly silly, from mandatory penis inspections (medics checking for VD) to life in the pitch-dark of "Tent City No. 1." And they cover the strategy and tactics leading up to the awful battle for the islandAthe navy's disputed plans for offshore bombardment, cut at the last minute from 10 days to three; the 16 miles of Japanese underground tunnels, far more than Allied intelligence expected. A quarter of the book follows the fighting on Iwo Jima, sortie by sortie. The final chapters pursue the veterans' subsequent lives: Bradley and Powers set themselves against often-sanctimonious tradition, retrieving the stories of six more or less troubled individuals from the anonymity of heroic myth. A simple thesis emerges from all the detail worked into this touching group portrait, in a comment by John Bradley: "The heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who didn't come back." No reader will forget the lesson. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The story of those six young American flag raisers in the famed portrait of Iwo Jima, told by the son of one of the soldiers.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The picture of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima in 1945 may be the most famous photograph of the twentieth century. Its fame was immediate, and immediately hitched to the wagon of publicity. The president summoned home the soldiers pictured to promote the government's final bond drive of World War II. After some confusion, the men were identified, but only three of the six flag-raisers survived the Battle of Iwo Jima. The survivors became celebrities. Bradley, the son of corpsman John Bradley, probes the nature of heroism--its appearance versus the reality. The reality was what happened on Iwo Jima: an 84 percent casualty rate inflicted on the flag-raisers' unit, Company E of the Second Battalion of the Twenty-eighth Regiment of the Fifth Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. In the course of his narrative, Bradley reconstructs Easy Company's war, starting with background material on the men, proceeding to their enlistment in the marines (the navy, in Bradley's case), training, landing on Iwo Jima, and fighting for Mount Suribachi, capped by the fluke of the photograph. The artifice of the bond drive elevated the survivors, who regarded their actions (if they spoke of them at all) as unworthy of being elevated above those of the marines who died. A riveting read that deals with every detail of the photograph--its composition, the biographies of the men, what heroism is, and the dubious blessings of fame. The depth of Bradley's research and the fluidity of his prose are reminiscent of another author's reconstruction of a relative's fate during the last days of World War II, Wings of Morning by Thomas Childers (1995), which cracked the top-10 best-sellers' list, as will Bradley's powerful book. Gilbert Taylor

Review

“Unforgettable ... one of the most instructive and moving books on war and its aftermath that we are likely to see ... its portrayal rivals Saving Private Ryan in its shocking, unvarnished immediacy.”—The New York Times

“The best battle book I ever read. These stories, from the time the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima enlisted, their training, and the landing and subsequent struggle, fill me with awe.”—Stephen Ambrose

“A powerful book whose vivid and horrific images do not easily leave the mind ... [Flags of Our Fathers] relates the brutalizing story of Iwo Jima with a fine eye for both the strategic imperative and the telling incident.”—The Boston Globe

“Brings a heartfelt personal dimension to this penetrating and insightful look at an American icon.... Flags of Our Fathers captivates as the story behind a famous photo, a story that lives on in a son’s heart.”—National Review

From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

James Bradley is the son of John "Doc" Bradley, one of the six flagraisers. A speaker and a writer, he lives in Rye, New York.

Ron Powers is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He is the author of White Town Drowsing and Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain. He lives in Vermont.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Sacred Ground

The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know —Harry Truman

In the spring of 1998 six boys called to me from half a century ago on a distant mountain, and I went there. For a few days I set aside my comfortable life—my business concerns, my life in Rye, New York—and made a pilgrimage to the other side of the world, to a tiny Japanese island in the Pacific Ocean called Iwo Jima.

There, waiting for me, was the mountain the boys had climbed in the midst of a terrible battle half a century earlier. The Japanese called the mountain Suribachi, and on its battle-scarred summit the boys raised an American flag to symbolize our country's conquest of that volcanic island, even though the fighting would rage for another month.

One of those flag raisers was my father.

The fate of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries was being forged in blood on the island of Iwo Jima and others like it in the Pacific, as well as in North Africa, parts of Asia, and virtually all of Europe. The global conflict known as World War II had mostly teenagers as its soldiers—kids who had come of age in cultures that resembled those of the nineteenth century.

My father and his five comrades—they were either teenagers or in their early twenties—typified these kids: tired, scared, determined, brave. Like hundreds of thousands of other young men from many countries, they were trying to do their patriotic duty and trying to survive.

But something unusual happened to these six: History turned all its focus, for 1/400th of a second, on them. It froze them in an elegant instant of one of the bloodiest battles of the twentieth century, if not in the history of warfare—froze them in a camera lens as they hoisted an American flag on a makeshift iron pole.

Their collective image became one of the most recognized and most reproduced in the history of photography. It gave them a kind of immortality—a faceless immortality. The flag raising on Iwo Jima became a symbol of the island, the mountain, the battle; of World War II; of the highest ideals of the nation; of valor itself. It became everything except the salvation of the boys who performed it.

For these six, history had a different, special destiny that no one could have predicted, least of all the flag raisers themselves.

My father, John Henry Bradley, returned home to small-town Wisconsin after the war. He shoved the mementos of his immortality into a few cardboard boxes and hid these in a closet. He married his childhood sweetheart. He opened a funeral home, fathered eight children, joined the PTA, the Lions, and the Elks—and shut out virtually any conversation on the topic of raising the flag on Iwo Jima.

When he died, in January 1994, in the town of his birth, he might have believed he was taking the story of his part in the flag raising with him to the grave, where he apparently felt it belonged. He had trained us, as children, to deflect the phone-call requests for media interviews that never diminished over the years. We were to tell the caller that our father was on a fishing trip, usually in Canada. But John Bradley never fished. No copy of the famous photograph hung in our house. When we did manage to extract from him a remark about the incident, his responses were short and simple, and he quickly changed the subject.

And this is how we Bradley children grew up: happily enough, deeply connected to our peaceful, tree-shaded town, but always with a sense of an unsolved mystery somewhere at the edges of the picture.

A middle child among the eight, I found the mystery tantalizing. I knew from an early age that my father had been some sort of hero. My third-grade schoolteacher said so; everybody said so. I hungered to know the heroic part of my dad. But try as I might, I could almost never get him to tell me about it.

John Bradley might have succeeded in taking his story to his grave had we not stumbled upon the cardboard boxes a few days after his death.

My mother and brothers Mark and Patrick were searching for my father's will in the apartment he had maintained as his private office. In a dark closet they discovered three heavy cardboard boxes. In those boxes my father had saved the many photos and documents that came his way as a flag raiser. All of us were surprised that he had saved anything at all.

Later I rummaged through the boxes. One letter caught my eye. The cancellation indicated it was mailed from Iwo Jima on February 26, 1945, written by my father to his folks just three days after the flag raising: "I'd give my left arm for a good shower and a clean shave, I have a 6 day beard. Haven't had any soap or water since I hit the beach. I never knew I could go without food, water or sleep for three days but I know now, it can be done."

And then, almost as an aside, he wrote: "You know all about our battle out here. I was with the victorious [Company E,] who reached the top of Mt. Suribachi first. I had a little to do with raising the American flag and it was the happiest moment of my life."

The "happiest moment" of his life? What a shock! If it made him so happy, why didn't he ever talk about it? Did something happen either on Iwo Jima or in the intervening years to cause his silence?

Over the next few weeks I found myself staring at the photo on my office wall, daydreaming. Who were those boys with their hands on that pole? Were they like my father? Had they known one another before that moment or were they strangers united by a common duty? Was the flag raising the "happiest moment" of each of their lives?

The quest to answer those questions consumed four years of my life and ended, symbolically, with my own pilgrimage to Iwo Jima.

Iwo Jima is a very small place to have hosted such a savage battle. Only eight square miles, the tiny island barely crests the seemingly infinite Pacific. The value of capturing this speck of land for the Americans was its location and its two airfields. The island provided a place for American planes to stop and refuel on crucial bombing missions to and from Japan.

Not many Americans make it to Iwo Jima these days. It is a dry wasteland of black volcanic ash that reeks of sulfur (the name means "sulfur island"). A closed Japanese naval base, it is inaccessible to civilians except for rare government-sanctioned visits.

It was the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles Krulak, who made the trip possible for me, my seventy-four-year-old mother, three of my brothers—Steve, Mark, and Joe—and many military men and women. One of first things we did on the island was to walk across the beach closest to Mount Suribachi, on the black volcanic sands. On their invasion maps the Marines had dubbed it "Green Beach," and it was across this killing field that young John Bradley, a Navy corpsman, raced under heavy fire. I watched as my mother made her way across that same beach, sinking to her ankles in the soft volcanic sand with each step. "I don't know how anyone survived!" she exclaimed.

Then it was time for our family to ascend the 550-foot volcanic crater that was Mount Suribachi. My twenty-one-year-old father had made the climb on foot carrying bandages and medical supplies; our party was whisked up in vans. I stood at its summit in a whipping wind that helped dry my tears. This was exactly where that American flag was raised on a February afternoon fifty-three years before. The wind had whipped on that day as well.

From the edge of the extinct volcanic crater, we could view the entire two-mile beach where the armada had discharged its boatloads of Marines. In February 1945 the Japanese could see it with equal clarity from the tunnels just beneath us. They waited patiently until the beach was crowded with American boys. They had spent many months positioning their gun sights. When the time came, they simply opened fire, beginning one of the great military slaughters of all history.

An oddly out-of-place feeling seized me: I was so glad to be there! The vista below us, despite the gory history, was invigorating. The sun and the wind seemed to bring all of us alive. At Suribachi you feel on top of the world, surrounded by ocean.

And then I realized that my high spirits were not so out of place at all. I was reliving something. I recalled the line from the letter my father wrote three days after the flag raising: "It was the happiest moment of my life."

We Bradleys then began to take pictures. We posed in various spots, including near the X that marks the spot of the actual raising. We had brought with us a plaque to personally commemorate the flag raising and our father's role in it. Joe gently placed the plaque in the dry soil.

IN MEMORY OF

JOHN H. BRADLEY

FLAG RAISER

2-23-45

FROM HIS FAMILY

I began to speak to the Marines who had gathered in front of our memorial.

I spoke first of the battle. It ground on over thirty-six days. It claimed 25,851 U.S. casualties, including nearly 7,000 dead. Most of the 22,000 defenders fought to their deaths.

It was America's most heroic battle. Two out of every three Americans who fought on this island were either killed or wounded. More medals for valor were awarded for action on Iwo Jima than in any battle in the history of the United States. To put that into perspective: The Marines were awarded eighty-four Medals of Honor in World War II. Over four years, that was twenty-two a year, about two a month. But in just one month of fighting on this island, they were awarded twenty-seven Medals of Honor, one-third of their accumulated total.

Next I showed the Marines the famous flag-raising photograph. I remarked that nearly everyone in the world recognizes it, but no one knows the boys.

I pointed to the figure in the middle of the image: solid, anchoring, with both hands clamped firmly on the rising pole. That's my father, ...

From AudioFile

In the same way that the turn of the last century saw a large number of Civil War memoirs, we are now seeing a large number of WWII memoirs. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is unique, for it tells the stories of the six Marines immortalized in the famous photograph of the raising of the second flag on Mount Suribachi during the battle for the island of Iwo Jima. Three of the Marines were killed in combat within days, while the remaining three went on to different destinies. Bradley, the son of the last flag raiser to pass on (1994), researched the happenings of that day, the lives of all, and tells us why his father never talked about the event, or the war in general. Veteran actor Bostwick's resonant baritone seems to take some time to warm up, but overall he reads this abridgment well. His pacing is even, and his staccato delivery is clear. His polished voice contrasts with that of the author, who reads the introduction without as much polish but with great heart. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000JMKN7E
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam (August 29, 2006)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 29, 2006
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5464 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 576 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0553111337

Best Sellers Rank: #242,857 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #125 in Military History Pictorials
- #244 in 20th Century World History
- #576 in Military & Spies Biographies

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Ron Powers
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Ron Powers is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. He is the co-author of Flags of our Fathers and True Compass–both #1 New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction bestsellers. His biography of Mark Twain–Mark Twain: A Life–was also a New York Times bestseller. He lives with his wife Honoree Fleming, Ph.D., in Castleton, Vermont.
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James Bradley
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I was born in Wisconsin surrounded by a loving family of ten and loved swimming in cold lakes. When I was a boy I read an article by former president Harry Truman recommending historical biographies for young readers. His reasoning was that it was easy to follow the storyline of someone’s life, and they would absorb the history of the times on the journey. History soon became my favorite subject and I have been an active reader all my life.
When I was thirteen years old I read an article by James Michener in Reader’s Digest which I paraphrase: “When you’re twenty-two and graduate from college, people will ask you, ‘What do you want to do?’ It’s a good question, but you should answer it when you’re thirty-five.” Michener went on to write that his experiences wandering the globe as a young man later inspired his works on Afghanistan, Spain, Japan and other places.
When I was nineteen years old, I lived and studied in Tokyo for one year. I later brought my Japanese friends home to Wisconsin. My father, John Bradley, had helped raise an American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima and had shot a Japanese soldier dead. My dad warmly welcomed my Japanese buddies.
I traveled around the world when I was twenty-one, from the U.S. to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, France, Germany, Italy, England and back to the United States.
At twenty-three I graduated with a degree in East Asian history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
For the next twenty years I worked in the corporate communications industry in the United States, Japan, England and South Africa.
In my late thirties I took a year off to go around the world again. On this trip I made it to base camp on Mt. Everest and walked among lions in Africa.
My father died when I was forty years old. My search to find out why he didn’t speak about Iwo Jima led me to write Flags of Our Fathers and establish the James Bradley Peace Foundation.
Flags of Our Fathers went on to be a bestseller and a movie, but few saw its potential at first. In fact, as this New York Times article documents, twenty-seven publishers turned the book down over a period of twenty-five months. This difficult and humbling birthing process inspired my live presentation Doing the Impossible.
In 2001 a WWII veteran of the Pacific revealed to me that the U.S. government had kept secret the beheading deaths of eight American airmen on the Japanese island of Chichi Jima, next door to Iwo Jima. After researching their deaths, I informed the eight families and the world of the unknown facts in my book second book Flyboys. (One flyboy got away. His name was George Herbert Walker Bush.)
After writing two books about WWII in the Pacific, I began to wonder about the origins of America’s involvement in that war. The inferno that followed Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor had consumed countless lives, and believing there’s usually smoke before a fire, I set off to search Asia for the original irritants. The result of that search is my third book, The Imperial Cruise.
I am working on my fourth book, about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and China.
Above my desk are the framed words of James Michener:
“Just because you wrote a few books, the world is not going to change. You will find that you will go to sleep and awaken as the same son-of-a-bitch you were the day before.”
For the past ten years, the James Bradley Peace Foundation and Youth For Understanding have sent American students to live with families overseas. Perhaps in the future when we debate whether to fight it out or talk it out, one of these Americans might make a difference.
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Alan L. Chase

"Flags of Our Fathers" - A Timely Look at a Bloody Battle in Our History

Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2006

Verified Purchase

Quite a while ago, Nick Olmsted, a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy, recommended that I read "Flags of Our Fathers." I am glad that I finally got around to taking his advice. This story struck me on many levels at once, and this seems to be an opportune time to share some of my thoughts about this remarkable book, written by James Bradley, the son of one of the six Marines whose iconic picture of the raising of the flag over Iwo Jima riveted a war-weary nation.

The film based on this book is due to be released tomorrow. My friend, Nate Fick, former Marines Corps officer and author of "One Bullet Away," had invited me to attend a special screening of the film tomorrow evening in Boston. There will be many Marines present for this gala event to raise funds for a scholarship program for the families of Marines who have fallen in combat. Here is how Nate described to me the work of the scholarship committee:

The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation will be showing a benefit premier of "Flags of Our Fathers" at the AMC Theater on Boston Common on Friday 20 October. Military guests of honor will include BGen John Kelly, legislative assistant to CMC, former ACMC's Generals Nyland and Neal, and perhaps others.

For those who don't know, the MCSF is committed to funding higher education for the children of Marines and Navy Corpsmen, especiallythose killed in action. It's a wonderful organization, and one I've been proud to be involved with during the past several years.

So, before I am influenced by the film's portrayal of the events on Iwo Jima and the stories of the six men - Harlon Block, James Bradley, Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, Frank Sousley, Mike Strank - whose picture became symbolic of a nation at war, I will share my take on the book. A review of the film will follow in a few days.

James Bradley was motivated to write "Flags of Our Fathers" after the death of his father. As the family sorted through the papers that John Bradley left behind, they found three cardboard boxes full of photos and documents related to Iwo Jima. Finding this secret stash shocked the Bradleys, since James had refused to discuss his role as a famous flagraiser.

"I hungered to know the heroic part of my dad. Try as I might I could never get him to tell me about it.

`The real heroes of Iwo Jima,' he said once, coming as close as he ever would, `are the guys who didn't come back.'" (Page 4)

My siblings and I had a similar experience. My father, who served in India with the U.S. Army Air Corps, hardly ever talked about his years of service that cost him four years of his life and compromised his health until he died at the relatively young age of 65. It was as if he had locked that part of his life away in some inaccessible vault. The closest he came to revealing that chapter of his life was to lead us in singing Army marching songs that seemed to play in his head like a continuous loop. Our frequent family drives in the country were filled with many hours of such songs. We whiled away the hours and the miles by singing "Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah," "Alice Blue Gown," "Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder," and "I've Been Working on the Railroad." I felt as if Bradley had touched a special rewind button when he wrote these words about the memorial service the family held when they were able to visit Iwo Jima in 1998:

"When I was finished with my talk, I couldn't look up at the faces in front of me. I sensed the strong emotion in the air. Quietly, I suggested that in honor of my dad, we all sing the only two songs John Bradley ever admitted to knowing: `Home on the Range' and `I've Been Working on the Railroad.'" (page 14)

Bradley chose an epigraph for the second chapter of the book that is timeless and haunting:

"All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys." Herman Melville (Page 17)

Bradley lays out in clear terms why he chose to undertake the project of writing the book and sharing the stories of the Iwo Jima flagraisers:

"That was the point, I reminded myself, the point of my quest: to bring these boys back to life, or a kind of life, to let them live again in the country's memory. Starting with my father, and continuing with the other five.

That is how we always keep our beloved dead alive, isn't it? By telling stories abut them; true stories. It works that way with our national past as well. Keeping it alive by telling stories." (Page 17)

I have long been a strong believer in the power of narrative to capture our imaginations and our hearts. The job that James Bradley and Ron Powers have done in this book reaffirms my faith in the power of a well-told story. By Bradley bringing back to life the six Iwo Jima flagraisers and their comrades who fell in battle there, I felt as if he were also connecting me to a piece of my father's history and bringing him back to life, as well. As you can imagine, reading this book evoked powerful emotions.

This book does a very effect job of contrasting the sanitized view that civilians have of war with the messy reality experienced by those in the midst of the fighting:

"To the civilian noncombatants, war was `knowable' and `understandable.' Orderly files of men and machines marching off to war, flags waving, patriotic songs playing. War could be clear and logical to those who had not touched its barb.

But battle veterans quickly lost a sense of war's certitude. Images of horror they could scarcely comprehend invaded their thoughts tortured their minds. Bewildered and numbed, they cold not unburden themselves to their civilian counterparts, who could never comprehend through mere words.

Mike, Ira, and Harlon - these three boys back from the Pacific Heart of Darkness - now embraced death. Two were convinced that their next battle would be their last. And one lingered on for ten years before he was consumed by a living nightmare." (Page 90)

"Today, a battle-scarred Ira Hayes would be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, and there would be understanding and treatment available to him. But in the late forties and early fifties, Ira had to suffer alone. Suffer daily with images of and misplaced guilt over his 'good buddies who didn't come back.'" (Page 333)

Post traumatic stress disorder - or PTSD - reared its ugly head over Iwo Jima and planted its flag in the hearts of those who fought there - and who have fought in every subsequent battle from Pusan and Pork Chop Hill to Khe Sahn and Hamburger Hill to Tikrit and Falujah. (I will return to the topic of PTSD in a series of articles in the coming weeks.)

Throughout the book, Bradley does justice to the legacy of the Iwo Jima flagraisers by addressing an issue that haunted each of them - the question of what it truly means to be a hero. The flagraisers felt that fate had singled them out for notoriety and the label of "hero," but each man felt in his heart that the real heroes were the ones who did not live to see the flag raised or the parades planned or the War Bond rallies held.

"And finally, I found a full-page newspaper ad from the Seventh Bond Tour, which he had participated in. It screamed: `You've seen the photo, you've heard him on radio, now in person in Milwaukee County Stadium, see Iwo Jima hero John H. Bradley!'

Hero. In that misunderstood and corrupted word, I think lay the final reason for John Bradley's silence.

Today the word `hero' has been diminished, confused with `celebrity.' But in my father's generation the word meant something.

Celebrities seek fame. They take actions to get attention. Most often, the actions they take have no particular moral content. Heroes are heroes because they have risked something to help others. Their actions involve courage. Often, those heroes have been indifferent to the public's attention. But at least, the hero could understand the focus of the emotion. However he valued or devalued his own achievement, it did stand as an accomplishment.

The moment that saddled my father with the label of `hero' contained no action worthy of remembering. When he was shown the photo for the first time, he had no idea what he was looking at. He did not recognize himself or any of the others. The raising of that pole was as forgettable as tying the laces of his boots.

The irony, of course, was that Doc Bradley was indeed a hero on Iwo Jima - many times over. The flagraising, in fact, might be seen as one of the few moments in which he was not acting heroically. In 1998 Dr. James Wittmeier, my father's medical supervisor in Iwo, sat beside me silently contemplating my request for him to explain, or speculate on, why my dad never talked about that time. Finally, after many long minutes, he turned to me and softly said, `You ever hold a broken raw egg in your hands? Well, that's how your father and I help young men's heads.' The heads of real heroes, dying in my father's arms.

So, he knew real heroism. He could separate the real thing from the image, the fluff. And no matter how many millions of people thought otherwise, he understood that this image of heroism was not the real thing." (Pages 260-261)

"Flags of Our Fathers" is a moving and loving tribute to heroes - real and perceived. I am glad that Nick Olmsted pointed the way to it. I hope that Clint Eastwood and Stephen Spielberg's translation of the story to the screen will honor the spirit of the men who fought on Iwo Jima.

Al

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Radar

A wonderful chronicle of some amazing Marines

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2024

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This book is a labor of love for the author and an amazingly personal history of some Americans who heeded the call to defend our nation and endured unimaginable hardship - but kept going till victory was won. A must read.

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J. P. Ledbetter

Profound in it Simplicity, yet awesome in it's Significance

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2000

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Wow, I have read so many inspirational books in my lifetime, being an avid reader, that it would be premature and presumptuous of me to say right now, that this book (Flag of Our Fathers) is perhaps the best book I have ever had the pleasure to read. Having just finished it, I am sure I will ponder this question for many days before coming to that conclusion. But I can instantly say that every single American middle school, eighth grade student, (being currently employed at one) should be required to read this book and do a book report upon it. James Bradley has touched upon so many issues and needs of our society today, that it would be impossible in this forum to highlight even a fraction of them. Museums of tolerance are fine, art programs and fund drives are wonderful. But reading this book would keep the legacy and the memory of these reluctant heroes alive, throughout the ages. As a student of history, our founding fathers and mothers, epic tails, and American patriotism, and as a Marine who has been to Iwo Jima (not in combat), I have throughout my life, held many a great literary work, in the highest of esteem. Yet I have just read in Mr. Bradley's new work, one of the most profound and powerful books of my life. James Bradley, his team of consultants and Bantam books, has done the world an immeasurable favor. A job, well done to all. Flag of Our Fathers tells the tale of those Pacific Defenders of our Way of Life, so eloquently that my eyes were filled with tears throughout. It also tells of how men and women like John Bradley continued to be heroes long after their service to their country was over (yet the pain and dreams persisted). It gives a picture of the hundreds of thousands of unsung veterans and other heroes both military and civilian (even without saying it) that pass through our lives on a daily basis. And many of them, we do not even know or recognize. Firemen, policemen, doctors, paramedics, teachers, good Samaritans, etc, etc. Yet these men in this episode in American History (in the Pacific) endured things that only few of us (if any) could imagine or comprehend. But the true underlying tale, is that hero's are just ordinary people, who do extraordinary things and endure terrible tragedy for a cause bigger than themselves. Some out of patriotism, some out of duty, some out of fear, some for anger, their buddies, pride and a hundred other reasons. John Bradley showed the way to true grace, humility and deserved hero status, even after giving full measure of himself on Iwo Jima, a gift and a humble peace few ever obtain. I will undoubtedly now send off in the next few days for The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw, in an attempt to complete or further my yearning for knowing all these WWII heroes better. It is true that I have many treasured books (read and yet to read) on the shelves of my den that I cherish with deep, deep affection, respect and awe. Books of historical philosophical brilliance, patriotic themes, political intuitiveness, and societal relevance. But James Bradley's Flag of Our Fathers will for the rest of my life, be positioned in a place of honor and esteem along with my Bible and the Constitution of the United States of America. Throughout my 26-year career as a United States Marine, my superiors, piers and subordinates alike could always depend upon my desk exhibiting the personal theme I held (not my own to be sure) of God, Country and Corp. My Bible was always there, next to the Constitution and I would place a Military manual next to that to represent the Corp. No longer will that be necessary...for now this book (Flag of Our Fathers) will proudly represent Corp and Community for me. I only wish I had had it all those long years ago while teaching young men and women what it meant to be a true Marine and American. Thank you James and Bantam Books, but most of all thank you John, you are and will always be a true American Hero.

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David Tough

Better than the movie

Reviewed in Australia on June 13, 2020

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A fascinating, well written account of Bradley's reconstruction of his father's life and formative experience on Iwo Jima. Very informative for non-Americans with limited knowledge of the USMC, Iwo Jima, Ira Hayes and the importance of the 7th War Loan. Semper Fi!

Kelsi

Amazing

Reviewed in Canada on February 19, 2014

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I loved this book and I could hardly put it down. The writing is clear and concise while providing enough detail and narrative to give the reader a good understanding of the intensity and ferocity of the fighting in the Pacific.

Bradley really emphasizes how the soldiers were just boys, most of them barely out of high school and 19 years old. The "old man" out on the battlefield was only 26 years old. I thought that gave the book a lot more emotion and caused me to have a lot more empathy for the boys Bradley writes about.

Mr. Torguet Patrice

Très bon livre

Reviewed in France on August 13, 2015

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Très bon livre sur la seconde guerre mondiale vue depuis les États Unis.
C'est le roman qui a servi de base au film de Clint Eastwood "Mémoires de nos pères" qui est très bien lui aussi.

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Kay Wenham

A masterpiece.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2012

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I read this book because of Barry Pepper and Clint Eastwood, the film adaption of this book left me feeling deprived- wanting more. This book has birthed my interest in the Pacific War and the psychology of warfare, it has enthralled me, captivated me, taken me on a journey and left me- like the wedding guest in Rime of the Ancient Marniner- "a sadder and wiser man"...or woman, ahem.
The detail and description of this book is harrowing, the anecdotes are heart rending, this book has affected me so that even Bradley's ridiculously enthusiastic patriotism failed to annoy me. However, as in his work "Flyboys" Bradley does not fail to sympathise with the other side, nor does he fail to understand Japan's actions- this is not the book of an ignorant man.
There are time I wanted to laugh and cry. In the first part of the book, the reader grows up with six boys whom we know will later raise the flag on Iwo Jima, 3 of which, we are told, will die there too. We begin to understand these men, to know them and thus ultimately understand Bradley's concluding moral to not just see them as the soldier's and heroes America branded them, but as young boys in the most horrible and unthinkable circumstance they could have ever have been thrown into.
Bradley's writing assumes some pre-knowledge of the military, but I did not personaly find this a problem, his use of description beautifully brings the true-story to life as it becomes less of a history book, less of a history lesson and more of a lesson in life.
Inspiring, saddening and enlightening; ultimately you will learn more from this book about human nature than you ever will from 1000 encyclopedias. This is a must-read, a masterpiece, a book that will be treasured in my heart forever.

Kunde101

very well

Reviewed in Germany on April 18, 2011

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ein super buch, auch wenn es auf englisch ist, ist es für deutsche super verständlich, besser als der film, da es auch viel weitläufiger ist, dennoch sollte man den film gesehen haben. da james bradley der sohn von john "doc" bradley ist, hat er die erzählungen seines vaters gut und mit bildern dargestellt.

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