Dear Du Quoin: Iwo Jima flag-raiser marched in 1953 Du Quoin centennial parade
This past Monday, Feb. 23 passed by quietly as so many days do. We went about our lives, going to work or the coffee shops. Teenagers went to school, as they always do. No one gave much of a thought to the importance of the day. Once ingrained into the national psyche, it is in this era just another day. In a way, that national "forgetfulness" is sad, but maybe it was the whole point after all.
On Feb. 23, 1945 - 70 years ago - five U.S. Marines and one Navy corpsman raised the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi on the embattled island of Iwo Jima. 70,000 Americans would participate in the invasion of this unlivable spit of sulfurous ash in the Pacific Ocean. 26,000 would become casualties, including 6,821 who paid the ultimate price. Three of the six flag raisers would not leave the island alive.
The legendary photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal. It actually records the raising on the summit of a second and larger flag, ordered by the Marine general commanding the invasion in order for the flag to be better seen across the island. The flag raising touched off a cacophony of Marine and Navy shouts, cheers, and bellows from the horns of many of the 450 ships of the invasion fleet. It also triggered furious Japanese gunfire and counterattacks.
The fighting went on for five weeks on Iwo Jima. The savagery of the combat has been recorded many times over. American soldiers endured hardships and slaughter they never could have imagined. Of the 20,000 well-entrenched and doomed Japanese defenders, only 216 were captured. The rest were killed or committed suicide. Okinawa and Saipan were still in the future before the Second World War ended in August 1945.
I was in Vic Ritter's mayoral office in Herrin a few years ago. An elderly gentleman approached the door, aged but ramrod straight. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, someone in my peripheral vision that at first had no impact on me one way or the other. When I turned in my seat to face him I stood, unable to speak. His hat said simply "Iwo Jima Veteran". To my eternal regret I failed to introduce myself and thank him for his service. I was so deeply moved to have before me this living connection to so terrible and important a period in our history, I was (and for those of you who know me, incredibly) speechless.
When I saw Monday's buried news stories about the flag raising on Iwo Jima, I thought what a pity it is that so few of us would pause from the normalcy of our days and reflect on what young Americans accomplished in that and the too many other battles that have been necessary to secure our freedom over the years. How safe we feel, perhaps the ironic goal of the strivings and sacrifice of so many.
Wars don't just happen on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. D-Day, on June 6, 1944, was the opening of months of raw combat in Europe that didn't end for nearly a year. Before Iwo Jima there was Guam and Midway, Guadalcanal, Tinian and the Philippines. Seven more months of grueling, horrific combat would follow. Later wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq entailed years of deadly dangerous overseas duty for our troops.
The flag raising on Iwo Jima was one moment perfectly captured in four years of war. The veterans who were there or who in other important ways over the years stood watch over our freedom, our values, and security 24 hours a day, 7 days each week, and 365 days each year. Rather than reflect our community and national appreciation a couple of days of the year, our gratitude to them should, like their service, be 24/7/365. Because I was somewhat awestruck in Herrin that day, I failed in my obligation to do just that. It bothers to this day.
On one other local note in regard to the flag raising, I invite you to visit the image once more. See the Marine on the left, with his hand raised up, the pole having left his grasp? That's Ira Hayes, a Native American Marine from Arizona. He would survive the battle itself and be sent home to tour the nation on War Bond drives, reenacting over and over again the moment Joe Rosenthal caught on film. More comfortable in a barracks than in the limelight and damaged psychologically by the horrors he had seen on Iwo Jima, Hayes would succumb to alcoholism in 1955, another Iwo Jima death.
Hayes was actually a late, surprise addition in Du Quoin's Centennial Parade on May 30, 1953. According to the June 1, 1953 edition of the Du Quoin Evening Call he was visiting friends in Dowell and was persuaded to "participate" in the parade. What a thrill it must have been for Du Quoin citizens only eight years removed from the horrors of World War II to see a real Iwo Jima flag raiser!
What was Hayes thinking at the time, a stranger in some strange celebration again being celebrated for something he longed to forget and could not. Two years later he would be found frozen to death, having spent his post-Iwo Jima days trying to drown in alcohol those very memories he was so famous for. Combat veterans seldom just come home.
Please don't take for granted the service of our armed forces afield today and the veterans who defended our nation in prior years. Recognize the sum of their service not just as holidays but every day. As our World War II generation fades from our midst, there is never a bad time to thank them for what they have meant to America. I can only hope that you'll do better than I did. I also hope, perhaps, that the Herrin Iwo Jima Veteran might see this, accept my apology, and know that I deeply appreciate his service.