FROM THE SHORES OF PARRIS ISLAND

Reprinted from NewsMax.com
From the Shores of Parris Island
Phil Brennan
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2003 Sixty years ago today, Nov. 5, 1943, I went over to New York with my 14-year-old brother. I was 17 years old and about to embark on that sea of uncertainty known as adulthood, which lapped the shores of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Parris Island, S.C., my destination that day.

We stood around having an awkward conversation of the kind one has with his kid brother when neither of you knows what to say, as the time for saying goodbye approached. When it came, we shook hands and Jim turned and headed for home.

As he slowly faded from sight down Lexington Avenue, what was happening suddenly rolled over me like an onrushing Sherman tank and I thought, "What in God's name have I done?"

Then I boarded the bus that would take me and a few dozen other Marine Corps recruits to the train station where the journey south – and the end of my sheltered youth – would begin.

Sometimes I try to reflect on the meaning of it all. Why did I cut the closest – and most comfortable – of family ties on what was essentially a spur-of-the-moment impulse? What did I learn as a result of that impulse? How much of what happened during the next three years helped shape the man I am today? And a lot of the answers still largely elude me.

It's easy to say that I came into the Corps as a kid and emerged as a man, but that begs the question: What kind of a man? Moreover, what kind of experiences went into the making of the man?

Boot camp was cruel. I was ill prepared for it. I had lived what was very much a sheltered, almost pampered existence surrounded by people who thought as I did, and had been raised as I had been and in the same environment. I can't say it was a closed society, but it came damned close to it.

We lived in Brooklyn in the fall, winter and spring months, went to the same parochial grammar schools and the same Jesuit prep schools, and spent magical glorious summers on that part of Long Island that was, in those days, largely a summer resort.

It was a tight, Victorian, Irish Catholic, upper middle class society rooted in the certitudes of Western Christian civilization best exemplified by the Roman Catholic Church and the United States of America.

In other words, the world of my childhood and teen years lacked – and I hate to use this hateful Marxist word – diversity. Sure, there were friends, classmates, acquaintances who didn't share our advantages – but in the main, they shared our beliefs and our attitudes.

On Parris Island I found myself in a very different world, surrounded by people whose backgrounds were as alien to mine as mine was to theirs, and making the transition was anything but easy.

The people around me spoke one language and I spoke another. It was a melting pot and the process of being melted down to become one part of a homogeneous whole was anything but pleasant. And I had the bruises to prove it.

In the end, however, that homogeneous whole, thanks to the geniuses who designed the system of making Marines at Parris Island, was the United States Marine Corps, and whatever else we had been before joining the Corps we were now what we would be for the rest of our lives: members of a storied elite – United States Marines.

I think that recognition, that somehow I had become a member of a famously elite organization, more than anything else, helped shape me into the man I eventually became. But I was still very much the product of my upbringing – what I was had simply been poured into the Marine Corps mold, strengthened, disciplined and made purposeful.

A lot of what I learned in my years in the Corps was good, and a lot of what I learned was not so good.

What was good was the complete acceptance of the fact that I had obligations to my God, to my country, to my fellow Marines and to the people around me, that simply needed to be fulfilled at all costs. If I had a job to do, it had to be done. No shirking. No excuses. Just do it, or die trying.

That stays with you for the rest of your life. Try to evade it and you'll hear the harsh voice of a phantom top sergeant – one of your guardian angels – shouting the Corps' patented obscenities at you.

What was also good, was the recognition that it didn't matter what your opponents did to you or said about you. What mattered was how you stood up to them without flinching or backing down. When you knew that you were acting in good conscience and good faith, nothing else mattered, even if it created the most serious consequences for you. It's called sticking to your guns.

What was not so good were the lessons I learned that taught you how to get around certain tasks and obligations by being fast on your feet.

I recall being sent down to the docks in San Pedro to help load the ship we would be boarding for our excursion into the Pacific war zone. There was a lot of heavy lifting to be done, and this 130-pound, skin-and-bones Marine was not at all enthralled with the idea of doing it.

So I found a clipboard and toted it around, making imaginary entries on a sheet of paper and (fortunately for my physical well-being) nobody questioned me. Everybody thought I was doing an assigned task.

In the latter part of my time in the Corps I got around a lot of things I should have done by using similar tactics. I had learned how to turn the system – the one described as having been designed by geniuses for execution by idiots – against itself.

There was a lot of smug satisfaction in getting away with it, but I finally understood that the real victim of my contempt for the rules and regulations and those who established them was my self-respect. I was, in short, acting like a liberal. I now realize the truth of what somebody once said: "Character is what you do when nobody is looking."

The older I get – and I've managed to get pretty damned old – the more I recognize the traits instilled in me by the Corps. And I see them in a lot of the mail about my columns I get from fellow Marines, past and present.

We seem to think a lot alike on most of the issues of the day. We are, for the most part, strongly conservative, both politically and in our personal lives, proudly patriotic and exuberantly proud of our Marine Corps heritage.

That can't be a coincidence. What we have become began on that first day on Parris Island, and I thank God I was there to begin the process.

Semper Fi.

* *

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com>) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

He can be reached at phil@newsmax.com.

Editor's note:
Hear John Wayne, "Why I love America" - Click Here
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~~~~~
This is...
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By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
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1952-72
~~~~~

MARINE's 'INCREDIBLE JOURNEY' ...

Marine’s ‘incredible journey’ started with horrific childhood
James Walker , Special to the Register 08/17/2003

From left, Chris Gentili holding his son, Giancarlo, and daughter, Giulianna, in the arms of big "brother" Thomas Dolan, and Mary Gentili. Contributed photo
DEEP RIVER — When 2nd Lt. Thomas Dolan returned to Mount St. John’s Home and School for Boys recently, he was no longer the scared, waif-like kid with the chip on his shoulder who had arrived on the school’s doorstep 13 years ago.

A level head, confidence and self-control were evident. The qualities had replaced an explosive temper, guarded eyes and teenage sneer that had evolved from a miserable adolescence wrought by years of physical and mental abuse at his West Haven home.

The abuse that Dolan endured might have derailed another youth. For Dolan, who did have helping hands, it set him on a path to achievement.

Recently, standing before hundreds of family, friends, staff and dignitaries, the brass buttons on Dolan’s dress blue Marine Corps jacket gleamed. The razor-sharp crease in his white uniform pants settled precisely against black regulation shoes polished to a mirrored finish. The white hat with black brim and gold band sat squarely on his head.

Three weeks after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Dolan, 26, was basking in thunderous applause upon his triumphant return. The Marine officer had returned to the school for troubled youths to accept St. John’s first "Leadership Through Learning" alumni award.

"I wanted to honor the incredible journey he had taken from here," said St. John’s executive director, Cathi Coridan. "I wanted the other kids to see a real-life hero whose story starts out just like their own."

That story started Dec. 27, 1989, when Dolan’s father, a truck driver, kissed him goodbye, jumped into his Jeep and never returned. As his father’s favorite child, he bore the brunt of his mother’s wrath, Dolan said.

For two years, Dolan’s mother had isolated him from his two younger brothers and sister by forcing him to live in the dimly lit, damp cellar in their home at 275 W. Spring St. in West Haven.

A kitchen chair was jammed under the doorknob to prevent him from opening the door to enter the interior of the house. A cellar door that led to the outside of the home was kept locked; if he went through it he could not use it to return.. There was no bathroom. He got in and out of the cellar by sliding through a window he broke. He lived in fear his mother would find out but it was no secret, he said.

Once a day, his mother removed the chair so she could feed him.

"She used to throw a can of Geisha tuna fish down to me along with a couple of slices of freezer-burnt bread," Dolan recalled. "I was banished to the basement with the dog."

He made his bed on the carpeted section of the floor until his step-grandfather purchased a rollaway bed for him. Nearby, the family dog, Nikki, which was never walked properly, according to Dolan, was chained to the oil tank. Dolan said he could not wash the scent of the animal’s urine off his body or out of his clothes.

Dolan, who’s known as Robbie, washed at friends’ homes or in the bathrooms at McDonald’s, before heading off to class at Carrigan Middle School. Soon, he stopped going. The school system was phasing out truancy officers, he said, and his name was just one among dozens sitting in a filing cabinet.

"I didn’t want to go to school because I was ashamed of how I looked and smelled," he said. "One day I came home and found the dog had climbed on my bed and given birth. I still had to sleep there. I can’t believe some of the things I went through. It was so primitive."

Dolan said he rarely saw his mother, except when she came down the eight steps to the basement to do laundry, to beat him or holler at him. He often hid in his "safety zone," which was an area under the stairs next to the oil tank. He would squeeze himself into the tight space because his mother couldn’t reach him. He ran an extension cord to the area so he could have light to read or listen to the radio.

The isolation was suffocating and disturbing.

"I began to grow wild," he said. "We had Sheetrock wall down there and I kept hitting it with my foot and fist. I just wanted attention."

His home life also was became violent. At one point, he said, his mother struck him over the right eye with a piece of wood and he was taken to the hospital for treatment, he said. At his mother’s insistence, Dolan told doctors he fell.

The violence, however, continued to escalate and Dolan snapped when she struck him in the face with a rubber hose.

"I picked up something and went after her," he said.

He didn’t hit her but destroyed furnishings around the house. Dolan was arrested for reckless endangerment, assault and threatening. He was taken to the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center, where he was stripped naked and disinfected. His new home was behind a "large steel door," along with 156 other youthful offenders.

"I cannot describe the amount of fear I had at that moment," he said.

A month later, when asked by a judge if she wanted her son back, his mother replied, "No." It was the last word he would ever hear her say. He was 13 years old and hasn’t seen her or his siblings since.

"I still didn’t know what I had done wrong," Dolan said. He later found out his father committed suicide.

Filled with rage at being abandoned by both parents, Dolan turned his anger on the establishment. He became a seasoned pro at getting kicked out of youth homes.

His short stints included stops at the Northern Middlesex Temporary Youth Shelter in Middletown, the Salvation Army Youth Emergency Shelter in Waterbury and Junction 1019 in West Hartford. Dolan was in the fast lane on a road that had one exit: steel doors with 24-hour security and armed guards.

SOMEONE TO CARE

When Dolan arrived at St. John’s, he hit a speed bump — a 24-year-old social worker named Chris Gentili, who was fresh out of Wesleyan University and had also just arrived at the school.

Gentili believed social workers were meant to change the world.

He couldn’t do that. But when he looked into the sunken, troubled blue eyes of Dolan, he saw beyond the cocky attitude. Gentili said he saw intelligence and motivation.

"He had a tough background and came from a real tough situation, but he was a smart kid," Gentili said.

Dolan saw in Gentili someone young enough not to be threatening but old enough to be an authority figure. More importantly, Gentili was new and hadn’t formed strong ties to any of the other boys.

The two forged a tightly knit relationship and soon Gentili realized they had formed more than a conventional social worker/at-risk youth alliance.

He had become a strong father figure at a critical time in the young boy’s life. He instilled discipline in Dolan and taught him how to shave and eventually how to drive. The harder he drove him, the more Dolan tried to impress him.

Athletically, he excelled in softball and basketball and won awards on the wrestling team. Academically, he became a top-notch student.

"He was a real competitor," Gentili said. "He didn’t have limits. Everything was fueled by the chip on his shoulders."

Gentili left St. John’s for greener pastures in his home state of Rhode Island, but the bond between the two remained strong. He continued to see Dolan once a week and spoke with him regularly.

Meanwhile, Gentili had been dating and decided to get married. He had already involved his future wife, Mary, in Dolan’s life. Though she took to him right away, Dolan was threatened by the new woman in his mentor’s life. He had already lost one father.

Without Gentili’s daily supervision, Dolan stumbled. Now 17 and no longer a resident at St. John’s, he was living on his own and making bad decisions. He had dropped out of Robert E. Fitch Senior High School in Groton and went to work on a lobster boat.

FINALLY, A FAMILY

Two weeks after Chris and Mary Gentili tied the knot, however, they made a big decision. They decided Dolan had come too far to throw everything away. They invited Dolan to move into their cramped, two-room apartment in Cranston, R.I.

"It took me 11 seconds to say yes," Dolan said. "I finally had a family."

Through an agreement with Fitch High School, Dolan enrolled in the Community College of Rhode Island, where he took 12 credits — six toward his high school diploma.

Each day he walked two miles to the school’s Knight Campus to attend class, bypassing two malls on his way.

"It was all uphill," Dolan recalled. "Boy, it was tough."

After earning his diploma, he joined the Marines and was stationed for two years at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. His enthusiasm and work ethic caught the eyes of a superior, who urged him to apply to the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I.

He spent about one year at the prep school before arriving in 1999 at the U. S. Naval Academy. It had been a long journey. As an enlisted marine, Dolan didn’t need a recommendation from a U.S. senator or representative. His test scores and letters of recommendation from his chain of command were enough to get him in.

A MARINE’S VICTORY

The memory of those isolated nights in the basement when he sat on the concrete floor and escaped into the world of Alexander Dumas’ "The Count of Monte Cristo" still burns in his head. But now, the burn comes the glow of triumph.

With his speech gripped in his hand and the applause thundering in his ears, Dolan stepped to the microphone at St. John’s. He looked with pride at Chris and Mary Gentili.

The good-looking Marine with the crystal-clear blue eyes told his audience, "it is an honor to say a brief word to you all."

It was more than an honor for Dolan. It was a victory.

"To be able to go back there was so special," Dolan said. "It meant so much."

An imposing brick and granite building, St. John’s sits high on a bluff above the Connecticut River in Deep River. It has nurtured young boys for almost 100 years. Started in 1904 as an industrial school, it became an orphanage in 1919. Operated under the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich, it has been helping at-risk youth since 1953.

Its motto is, "It is better to build boys than to mend men."

Mary Gentili believes they helped build a winner in Dolan.

"He’s everything you want your daughter to marry," she said. "He’s turned out to be an incredible, thoughtful and caring man."

Over the years, Dolan had made attempts to reconcile with his mother, he said. After winning first place in the Class L state championships in 1995 when he was at Fitch High, he appeared in the sports section of two local papers. He left newspaper clippings of his achievement in her mailbox, hoping she would contact him. She never did. He no longer knows where she lives.

But another family found its way into Dolan’s heart.

That family includes the parents of Chris and Mary, as well as their brothers and sisters and extended relatives throughout the Unites States — all who have welcomed the kid who beat the odds.

Life has given him something more. Dolan again has a little brother and sister: Giancarlo, 3, and Giulianna, 1, Chris and Mary’s two children.

Dolan intends to make a career out of the military. In January he heads to school in Quantico, Va., where he hopes to become an infantry officer. He has locked his eyes on acquiring a degree from Harvard Law School. Future aspirations include a position as a judge advocate general and eventually the halls of Congress as a senator from Rhode Island.

"Looking back, my life has been a turbulent roller coaster of emotion, never knowing if it would stay on the right track," Dolan said. "The adversity I have overcome has forged me into the person I am today."

He owes much to one special man who believes that kids don’t need "part-time help."

"Most people have their parents," Dolan said. "I didn’t. I had books and I have Chris. That’s what I have."

James Walker is a reporter for the Pictorial Gazaette, a Journal Register newspaper.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1281&dept_id=517514&newsid=10021097&PAG=461&rfi=9
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1281&dept_id=517514&newsid=10021097&PAG=461&rfi=9


©New Haven Register 2003

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

COMMUNIST GOALS (1963)

Communist Goals (1963)
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
Documention below
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35

January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, January 10, 1963



Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.



Note by Webmaster: The Congressional Record back this far has not be digitized and posted on the Internet.

It will probably be available at your nearest library that is a federal repository. Call them and ask them.

Your college library is probably a repository. This is an excellent source of government records.

Another source are your Congress Critters. They should be more than happy to help you in this matter.

You will find the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto interesting at this point.

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Documentation
Webmaster Forest Glen Durland found the document in the library.
Sources are listed below.
The quote starts on page 259.

Microfilm:
California State University at San Jose
Clark Library, Government Floor
Phone (408)924-2770
Microfilm
Call Number:
J
11
.R5
Congressional Record, Vol. 109
88th Congress, 1st Session
Appendix Pages A1-A2842
Jan. 9-May 7, 1963
Reel 12

The book was found in the off campus stacks, was ordered and checked. The quote below was checked against the original and is correct. The few errors in the copy from the Congressional Record are shown in [ ] .

The quote starts on page 259.

California State University at San Jose, Clark Library stacks call number:
Naked Communist
HX
56
S55

Book title page:
Skousen, W. Cleon. Naked Communist
Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Co.
C. 1961 , 9th edition July 1961.

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IWO JIMA VET TO REGROUP FELLOW MARINES

Ventura County Star

Iwo Jima veteran to regroup his fellow Marines
T.O. soldier heads to San Diego

By John Mitchell, jmitchell@insidevc.com
September 1, 2003

Jim Lieberknecht's scariest moments during World War II came in his fifth major battle, the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945.

"It was almost like a textbook operation," said Lieberknecht, then a master technical sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 155 Howitzers, Corps Artillery, U.S. Marine Corps. "We could see the ships firing at the island and at Mount Suribachi, and we could see the landing boats going in to the beach.

"We went in the second day," the Thousand Oaks man recalled. "We could hear small arms fire pinging on (our boat), and we ducked behind the superstructure. We were a little stressed at that, because we were carrying gas and ammunition as well as the howitzers. At the beach we got off as quick as we could; that was the rule of experienced people."

The experiences of Lieberknecht's war, like this one, are buried deep inside his memory. He will talk about them, but often, as he visualizes the men and the unspoken horrors he saw, he will occasionally surrender to overwhelming feelings, and weep.

Later this week, he and his wife, Anne, will travel from their home in Thousand Oaks to San Diego, where they will participate in an annual reunion of Lieberknecht's World War II outfit. The old Marines will greet each other, memories and emotions will be stirred, and stories will be exchanged.

Like Lieberknecht's first night on Iwo Jima.

"Our position, where we would set up the batteries, wasn't established, and we were pretty much on our own," he said. "I was in a foxhole with guys I didn't even know, and we sat there all night. I think there was a light rain. We just wanted to get through the night, not knowing which direction was which. It turned out to be pretty calm but scary."

Before Iwo Jima, there was Tulagi-Guadacanal, Tarawa, Saipan and Guam, all of them milestone assaults as U.S. forces brought the war closer to Japan. Lieberknecht participated in all.

Saipan, in the Marianas, was a monthlong hell hole for the Americans. Near the end of the fighting, the remnants of a desperate Japanese garrison launched bloody suicide attacks, and many civilians leaped to their deaths from cliffs.

Lieberknecht, who was his battalion's communications chief, remembers the two Marines who came back to their foxhole on Saipan to discover it had taken a direct hit and was blown to bits.

And the runner from one of the infantry companies coming through the artillery area. "Suddenly we got hit with mortar fire, and the guy says, 'Damn, I'm going back up to the front. I don't like this at all.' "

Later, a communications officer pulled up in a jeep and told Lieberknecht he was going to show him the front.

"It was amazing," Lieberknecht said. "As we got closer to the front, we'd see more and more (dead) Marines wrapped in ponchos, and Japanese body parts were all over the place. The smell was something like you'd smell nowhere else. It was overwhelming, awful."

Today, Lieberknecht, 80, is far removed from the dangers and horrors of his memories. He and Anne, 65, spend much time in the peaceful ambience and spirituality of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks. They refer to the church as their "second home." Both do custodial work and care for the church's five rose gardens. Lieberknecht, retired after 32 years as an IBM manager, is the congregation's bookkeeper.

This year, it was his turn to organize his outfit's three-day reunion. With help from Anne, his wife of 39 years, he's done it meticulously.

"Although there's an age difference between us, we share being ever so prideful of our nation and the ground we walk on," his wife said.

"I've had the chance to walk with these guys for 40 years," she said. "I'm walking in history, because they are really historic figures who served their country. I feel I'm a very strong part of them."

This year, 28 veterans have said they will show up, a big drop from the more than 100 who came in 1987. A few are staying home this year because their wives are ill.

"The reunions are an emotional thing for me, sort of a renewal," Lieberknecht said. "It's one of the most important parts of my life. I cry sometimes. The stories get better each year. I love to talk to the guys. Everyone has his own little war he was in, so you pick up bits and pieces and then say, 'I didn't know that!' "

"These reunions are everything to Jim," his wife said. "We go melded together as one, and we stand very prideful, and then are so humbled by the others. We embrace each other and their wives. It's such an incredibly close time, a time to renew friendships and camaraderie."

Lieberknecht told the story of Gunnery Sgt. John Grivich when both were in a camp in New Zealand in 1943.

"Grivich used to drive into town and pick up supplies for us," Lieberknecht said. "One time he comes back holding up a pair of undershorts. He had written on the shorts, 'Are you short of drawers? If you are, I'll buy you a couple.' "

Forty-four years later, Grivich and Lieberknecht met at a reunion. Lieberknecht opened up his World War II scrapbook and there, in all its glory, were the same shorts with Grivich's words intact.

"Grivich was always a very outgoing, extroverted type of guy," Lieberknecht said. "When he saw the shorts, he got very excited and started walking around holding them up for everyone to see. 'Look what Lieberknecht kept; look at this!' he kept saying."

Lieberknecht shed no tears with that story, just a big smile.

On Saturday morning at the Holiday Inn in San Diego, Nelson Roetter, "one of the guys" who entered the ministry, will conduct a memorial.

"He always has a moment in the service where we remember those who went this past year, and we pray again for those who went before them," Anne Lieberknecht said. "After a moment of silence, I sing The Lord's Prayer. Then I say, 'Marines rise.' They stand, and we lift our voices in 'The Marine Hymn.' "

http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_2225384,00.html
http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_2225384,00.html
Copyright 2003, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Gunny G's GLOBE and ANCHOR Sites & Forums
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/gunny.html
~~~~~

V-J DAY MEMORIES

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

V-J Day memories
By Stroube Smith
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published August 14, 2003


The day Japan gave up in World War II, Aug. 14, 1945, was exactly a week before I was to celebrate my 11th birthday. Up until President Truman's announcement at 7 p.m. Eastern time, I had really thought the war was going to last long enough for me to become a GI and achieve various heroic deeds of derring-do. Of such things are adolescent dreams and delusions made.

There is some confusion over when we should say this cataclysmic conflict ended. The AP Stylebook says Aug. 15, the day Japanese Emperor Hirohito broadcast the news to his people. Because of that notation, that is the date most often used by newspapers. Others insist on Sept. 2, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur presided over the formal surrender signing aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

To me, though, it will always be that evening of Aug. 14 and the wild celebrations Truman's announcement set off on South Lee Street in Alexandria, in the rest of the city and across the nation. It is also the day the killing, for the most part, came to an end.

I suppose it is impossible to really convey the giddy relief that swept the country. It was not just the ending of the war, as costly and devastating as that had been. For a decade and a half, since the beginning of the Depression, Americans had been struggling through grim, harsh days when sheer survival could be an iffy proposition.

With the announcement Japan had had enough, the end of years of strain snapped something loose in the country's soul, and the delirium that marked the end was truly feverish. People poured out of their homes or whatever public place they were in, laughing and shouting, hugging and kissing.

As the din mounted, a church bell began ringing, and one by one all the bells of the city added their voices to the bedlam. Somehow, a few people even got their hands on fireworks to light up the sky.
Leaving my mother, who was crying with relief over the survival of my soldier brother, my father and I walked to a newsstand on King Street and bought extras of at least three Washington daily newspapers. Along the way, I got to view alcoholic celebrations for the first time. Among the people we ran across was our family doctor, a squeaky prim and sober man, and he was as carried away as anyone.

While we walked, we listened to the radios elaborating on the news. In those days before air conditioning in private homes, I could walk across town on warm days and not miss any of my favorite radio shows — Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Fibber McGee. As you can tell, I tried to keep a light heart.

How to count the cost? Dollars and cents are too cheap a way to calculate. According to my almanac, more than 16.3 million Americans served in uniform. Battle deaths totaled more than 292,000, with 115,000 deaths from other causes. The wounded came to almost 673,000. The total casualties for the United States came to well more than 1 million.
The 1930 Census set the U.S. population at 132 million; as the figures show, the human cost was dreadful. By comparison, the 2000 Census figure was 281 million. It would take much more than 2 million casualties to be the equal proportionally for today's United States.

And the United States came off comparatively lightly among the major combatants. Japan was hit by two atomic bombs that effectively erased two major cities. Tokyo was fire-bombed, leaving acres of the city a wasteland. Germany was equally leveled by bombing and massive artillery barrages from both west and east. Italy did not get off much more lightly.

Of our Allies, the Soviet Union often used the lives of its troops to make up for the equipment and technology it did not have, and its casualties were practically beyond belief. Britain and its empire entered the war in Europe at its very beginning, years before the United States, and was bled each and every year that the fighting went on. France, though defeated, managed an army of liberation. China was brutalized by the Japanese acting both as a combatant and as an occupying force.

All these countries, Allies and Axis both, suffered civilian casualties that in many cases are impossible to calculate. And beyond those numbers loom the millions consumed by the Holocaust.

I'm afraid that on that Aug. 14 not many of us had much thought for the suffering of all those other peoples. I didn't know, for example, that the Germans had sent into their front lines 11-year-old boys, as I was only days away from becoming. And the Germans had not been the only ones handing weapons to children that young. We just knew that our own ordeal was at an end, and that our fighters would soon be on the way home.

And even on that joyful night there were reminders that the pain had not ended for everyone. Across the street an elderly gentlemen was crying. I stopped and asked him what was wrong. He waved a yellow telegram that he had received only hours before: His son, had been killed, one of the last casualties of the Pacific war.
That young man the summer before had driven me crazy by endlessly practicing "You Are My Sunshine" on his guitar at an open window late into almost every sweltering night.
And that was how my V-J Day and night ended.


Stroube Smith is a copy editor for The Washington Times and a freelance writer.




Copyright © 2003 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Return to the article

A CALL TO ARMS...

Remarks of Stephen H. (Steve) Cobb, Colonel and Retired State Senator (HI), for
MOPH PURPLE HEART DAY OBSERVANCE
at Mount Vernon, VA, on Thursday, August 7, 2003
Hosted by Greater Washington Chapter #353

A Call to Arms for Combat Wounded Veterans


Thank you for the honor to be invited as your speaker to honor the 221st Anniversary since three great American heroes were awarded the first Purple Heart, then called the Badge of Military Merit: Sergeants Elijah Churchill, William Brown, and Daniel Bissell, Jr. In 1782, the Badge of Military Merit was a simple figure of a heart, cut from purple cloth of silk edged with narrow lace of binding. Today the Purple Heart Medal has become the most widely recognized decoration in the USA for being wounded in combat.

It was General Douglas MacArthur, as the new Chief of Staff of the Army, who revised the Badge of Military Merit to be in the form of a Purple Heart, in honor of the 200th birthday of George Washington, on February 22, 1932. Upon receiving the draft of the implementing general orders, he crossed out “Badge of Military Merit” and wrote in “Purple Heart” instead. He then issued War Department General Orders No. 3, reading as follows: “Purple Heart. — By order of the President of the United States, the Purple Heart, established by General George Washington at Newburgh, August 7, 1782, during the War of The Revolution, is hereby revived out of respect to his memory and military achievements.”

The Purple Heart has continued to this day as the only medal awarded for wounds received in combat. The criteria for those eligible has been changed several times over the years since 1932. Shortly after the Purple Heart award was revived, a group of combat wounded veterans founded the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH), which was finally chartered by Congress in 1958 to represent the interests of veterans before Congress and other agencies, working with other veterans organizations as needed.

Most importantly, the credit goes to each of you—the recipients of the Purple Heart Medal, and your family members - who have kept alive the Military Order of the Purple Heart for all these many years. You have made a commitment to continue the legacy, and you have made the effort to be here today, for which we all thank you.

We, who wear the Purple Heart Medal of today, have fought, and bled, and in too many cases, have died for our country. We belong, involuntarily, to one of the most exclusive organizations today - the group of people who were wounded in combat as a direct result of armed enemy action. We love our country, and we have proven this love on the battlefields of America's wars. We would willingly do so again, wherever and whenever the need may arise. As defenders of freedom, we also claim the right to speak freely, and today I intend to exercise that right, as a celebration of freedom. At the risk of being controversial, I think the time has come to comment about promises NOT kept to our veterans, by our government, including the President, the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. My remarks are entirely my own, and not on behalf of any organization. However, I believe many veterans will agree with what is said today.

Our Continental Army Commander and First American President George Washington said, and I quote: “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceived veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by our nation.”

The day before his inauguration, on January 19, 2001, President-elect George W. Bush said, and again I quote: “In order to make sure that morale is high with those who wear the uniform today, we must keep our commitment to those who wore the uniform in the past... We will make sure promises made to our veterans will be promises kept.”

I say to you today, Mr. President, those promises have not been kept.

The three major issues of most concern to retired and soon-to-be-retired veterans, not in any order of priority, today are: One—Concurrent Receipt; two—Full lifetime medical care; and three—Full TRICARE and Medicare funding, with full survivors' benefits. A brief history of issues one and two may be very educational.

The Bush Administration and Justice Department sent its legions of lawyers to argue against the class action suit to restore full lifetime medical care for our veterans who had been promised such a benefit for 20 years of dedicated service to our country!

The Class Action Group (CAG) of those seeking full lifetime medical care as promised by our government and military recruiters, led by Colonel George “Bud” Day, a retired Air Force Medal of Honor recipient, said in a DIRECT message to the President and Congress, on June 27, 2003, as follows, and I quote in part:

“One might ask President Bush, ‘Mr. President how can you demand other nations adhere to promises and commitments when you and our Congress won't keep promises and commitments made to your own military retirees and veterans? Your White House fought our medical care promise all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress is delaying, denying or otherwise ignoring benefit commitment obligations made to our retired veterans.’

‘Our government has failed, and broken faith with its warriors in time of need - it has not honored its word—you have not honored your word Mr. President.

‘We love our country and would fight for her again in a minute but we are disgusted with greedy, self-serving, politicians. Mr. President, you, Congress and the Supreme Court have led retired military veterans down a long road of denial, delay, deception and selfish betrayal. It must stop; commitments to our retired veterans must be fulfilled.’” (End of Quote)

In the Independence Day message for 2003, the CAG represented by Harry Riley for Colonel Bud Day said, and again I quote in part:

“What we have been doing and continue to do, what our fight for military retiree medical care stands for, is all wrapped up in the integrity, strength, truth, courage, and honor represented in our flag and the bedrock laid by our founding fathers. Truth and justice does matter...still.

“We want our present generation of troops to know that our fight is for them too, as they fight, and yes, die for us. A special thought today to our widows, widowers, and spouses who have and continue to fight the good fight.” (End of Quote)

I think it is a national disgrace for the Secretary of Defense to threaten (again) a veto if full Concurrent Receipt or an expansion of TRICARE is passed by the Congress, as reported in the Military Officers’ Association of America (MOAA) Legislative Update for Friday, July 11, 2003. In a way, I hope such a veto is made this year, because then we as veterans can learn who our friends really are under fire in the Congress of the United States. I will say more on this later.

On the legislative front, there is currently a drive in Congress for a Discharge Petition to force the removal from Committee of a bill for full Concurrent Receipt.

(From the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) Legislative Report for June 27, 2003.) I quote in part: “Some are trying to make this a partisan issue, but there should be nothing partisan about relief for disabled retirees.
Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House has expressed opposition to the maneuver (recognizing continuing White House opposition), and is urging its members not add their names. We couldn't disagree more. This is only a partisan issue if politicians choose to make it so. It's not partisan in any way, shape or form to expect legislators of both parties to back up these words with action. If we are to overcome that opposition, we have to remind legislators that their first duty is to their constituents, not to their party leaders. The only way we're going to move forward is to generate an avalanche of mail to Capitol Hill, and make those who say they support disabled retirees realize that they can't have it both ways. Then if you have already done so, please take a moment to write your representative and ask him or her to sign the discharge petition. (This can be done at any time.) You can also ask personally. The question you ask can be simple, short, and to the point. ‘If you support concurrent receipt, and co-sponsored H.R. 303, why don't you sign the (Discharge) Petition?’” (End of quote)

So what more can we do as citizens and veterans to help on veterans' issues? We can boycott the ceremony, parade, or home appearance of those Members of Congress who do not support our issues. Or, better yet, we can show up at their ceremony, parade, or home appearance with placards and picket signs and ask the hard questions of why the Congressperson does not support veterans. Then we can explain in detail to the news media present exactly why that Congress member does not support veterans, despite claims he/she has made.

A long time ago, I learned the legislative lesson on the difference between being involved and being committed. It is like the difference between ham and eggs: The chicken is involved in that process, but ah, the pig is truly committed to the issue. In short, he gave his all. Now we should ask our Members of Congress to be more than just involved by co-sponsoring or saying they support our bills, but to be truly committed on our veterans’ issues by voting under fire as outlined in my political rating chart. This needs to be done in every state and in every congressional district. That is where our grassroots veterans can play a crucial role by keeping the pressure on their Member of Congress, and voting as a block based on performance the next election. As former President Reagan often said to the Soviets: “Trust, but verify!”

We must remember, it was the Department of Defense (DoD) under a Democratic administration that recommended cutting the lifetime medical benefits of retirees in 1995, and a Republican administration that opposed both Concurrent Receipt and the restoration of full lifetime medical care in 2002, and again this year. Therefore, both political parties have screwed veterans with equal abandon. We should be equally bi-partisan in our efforts. So please, Mr. President, bring on your veto this year, and let us find out who our friends really are, under fire in the veto override process.

For me, there is no personal benefit in either full lifetime medical care or Concurrent Receipt. I enlisted in the Army long after the December 7, 1956 cut off date. After my service in Vietnam, where I was wounded, I waived in writing any disability claim to continue serving our country in the U.S. Army Reserve. So, I am not eligible for Concurrent Receipt, however it is defined.

As for TRICARE and Medicare, we cannot stop the aging process. But, as an officer and leader, I have been responsible for taking care of my soldiers, and I am joining thousands of other officers and leaders to fight for our troops in another battlefield called "the legislative process" also known as Congress. As a retired State Senator, I also know first-hand the devious nature of the legislative process.

I was deeply touched when reading an Email account of a hospital visit by the President, who prayed for a wounded veteran who lost his right hand in combat in Iraq. The President then kissed the forehead of the veteran, said that he loved him, and thanked him for his service. Yet, at the same time, this same President will deny that veteran the fairness of Concurrent Receipt for the disability because of his wound.

We, who have fought and bled in America's wars, are now asking for your help on another battlefield called the "Legislative Process" and our area of operations is now in the halls of Congress. We are joined in this fight by veterans from across America, members of our Ladies Auxiliary, and sympathetic supporters, many of whom are not veterans, but who recognize what is right and just for our veterans.

As John Fitzgerald Kennedy said at the close of his inaugural address: “Let us go forth to lead the land we love, knowing that here on earth, God's work must truly be our own.” Thank you, God Bless all of you, and God Bless America.

###

Enclosed on the next page is a brief, biographical summary of the guest speaker, Steve Cobb, Colonel and Senator, Retired. This biography, and the entire Purple Heart Day program may also be accessed on the Internet at the web address of: www.PurpleHeart353.com




STEVE COBB: Military and Legislative Background

Steve Cobb served as an elected Member of the House of Representatives from 1972 to 1978 and as a Senator of the State of Hawaii from 1978 to 1992. He was elected a total of 7 times with victory margins as high as 77%. He also served as an informal advisor to President Bill Clinton on Russia, and briefed the President personally on economic and political developments in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), formerly known as the Soviet Union.

In 1989 and 1990, Steve traveled to Russia to meet with and help Afghantsi, Soviet veterans of the Afghan war. The purposes of his visits were to help fellow veterans adjust to civilian life and find jobs after returning home from an unpopular war. He and other Vietnam veterans served as older brothers and advisors to their comrades in arms. Steve is a Vietnam veteran, wounded 4 times, and decorated 5 times, including the Silver Star Medal for rescuing 6 wounded comrades under enemy fire from 3 sides. For his heroism, he also received a battlefield promotion to the rank of Captain.

From 1991, Steve lectured extensively at Moscow State Lomonosov University in Russia, and many other cities of the USSR. He was invited as a guest lecturer on the subjects of international investments, economics, banking, computers, political science, and fiber optic technology. He was a leader in lifting the American embargo on fiber optic cable to the former USSR. He lived in Minsk, Belarus for 6 years, and lectured at both Moscow State University and the Joint Military Intelligence College (JMIC) of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for over 6 years. His military experience includes specialized training in nuclear defense and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

In 1992, Steve first visited the Republic of Belarus and toured factories that manufactured the weapons, which caused 2 of his 4 wounds and killed 6 of his 10 friends in Vietnam. He helped those factories successfully convert to making instruments of peace, such as hair dryers, vacuum cleaners, and household electrical parts. His Belarussian friends have said he is living proof it is better for us to trade and talk with each other than to shoot each other.

In 1992, Steve VOLUNTARILY gave up his Senate seat to move to Russia and the CIS to help with economic development after the breakup of the USSR. He has traveled extensively in all Republics of the CIS, the successor of the former Soviet Union

In the private sector Steve has worked as Corporate Policy Director for a large Hawaii energy firm and Director of Administration for a major health food company. From 1992 to 1995, he led the delivery of anti-radiation enzyme products to the people of Belarus who suffered extensively from the fallout of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Steve works and meets periodically with over 20 private investor groups in the USA and Pacific Region. He recommends investments as well as legislation to promote a favorable investment and business climate. He provides counter terrorism consulting, international investment, and economic analysis. Steve is an active member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH), the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), and the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).

Please welcome retired Colonel and Senator Steve Cobb.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WE DON'T PROMISE YOU A ROSE GARDEN

Rose Garden
July 22, 2003

PFC Sarah M. Hickey
Staff Correspondent

We STILL don't promise you a rose garden

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. (July 22, 2003) -
In the early 1970's, a Marine Corps recruiting poster featuring a Drill Instructor menacing a recruit began its tenure. The poster served to remind prospective Marines of the reality of their obligation with the harsh phrase "We don't promise you a rose garden." It ran from late 1971, to mid 1984, but no one expected the poster to become such a legend and staple of the recruiting offices, least of all the model for the poster, former drill instructor Sgt. Charles A. Taliano.



CLICK-HERE!!!!!



"I'm amazed that the poster has the staying power that it has," said Taliano. "That I was even with a platoon when the picture was taken was a surprise."

"It was April of '68," recalls Taliano. "I was getting out in May, so I wasn't really supposed to take charge of a platoon. I was just taking the light-duty recruits on a police-call, when I was asked to take one of the new platoons through the forming phase of boot camp."
"The picture wasn't posed. In fact, I'm not sure I was really "yelling" at the recruit in the poster," said Taliano. "I just did a good job of welcoming that young man to recruit training."

To Taliano, the poster symbolized more than a simple picture of his face. "I don't look at the poster like it's me," he said. "I view it as a drill instructor and a recruit. It symbolizes the challenges presented to both of them."
Although it's been more than 30 years since Taliano's honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, he still fondly recalls his time as a drill instructor. "Drill instructor duty is the best duty," said Taliano. "It's the duty that you love to hate, but that you wouldn't trade for anything. To have a hand in the making of Marines was remarkable."

Although retired from the civilian work force, Taliano is still working with Marines. He attends poster signings across the country, as well as volunteering at the Parris Island Museum. "I get a real kick out of it," said Taliano. "I love the chance to be around Marines again."

Taliano is also spending his retired days looking for the recruit in the poster. "For the longest time I shied away from finding out if he survived boot camp," he said. "He wasn't even one of my recruits. Last November, however, I met a gunnery sergeant at the Marine Corps Association Store. He told me that his company gunnery sergeant had claimed to be the recruit in the poster."

According to the gunnery sergeant, the recruit from the poster retired as a sergeant major, although, without either the name of the gunnery sergeant or the sergeant major the claim is impossible to verify. "I'd like to have a reunion now that the recruit outranks me."

The poster continues to be a representation of the constant cycle of the Marine Corps. The recruit in the poster was promoted to sergeant major. Taliano begin as a recruit. The poster's legacy did not begin on the drill field, but with a recruit. "My parents and sister had come down for graduation," said Taliano. "My father and I were sitting on one of the cross bars of the A-frame. Now, I don't remember this, but my father says I pointed to a platoon, and said, 'I'm going to come back."
-30-
ARE YOU THE MARINE RECRUIT ON THIS RECRUITING POSTER?

If so, please respond to this post at...
Gunny G's Old Salt Marines Tavern Interactive!
The recruit is thought to now be a retired Marine Sergeant Major.

True! The recruit isn't shown very well in the pic, but likely he is aware of the pic and knows he is in it.

Report Marine, your old DI is looking for you...

ATTENTION!!!!!
Please See Also A New Rose Garden Site!!!!!-HERE!!!!!

KOREAN WAR SHAPED LIVES IN 50 YEARS SINCE CONFLICT

Posted on Sat, Jul. 26, 2003
Korean War shaped veterans' lives in 50 years since conflict
VICKIE CHACHERE
Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. - Murdoch Ford was 15 and restless when he lied about his age and joined the Marines in 1950.
He wanted the adventure and the $84 monthly salary a private first class earned to send home to his mother in New Jersey, who was raising four children by herself. He had just turned 16 when he was among the first wave of Marines who stormed into North Korea at Inchon on Sept. 15, 1950.

"I grew up fast," Ford said. "I went from being a 16-year-old boy to being a 16-year-old man as soon as I started seeing corpses."

Eddie Koh was also just a boy when war swept his homeland. He used the limited English he'd learned from Christian missionaries to become a spy for American forces. Orphaned at the war's end, Koh came to the United States after three soldiers he had befriended petitioned their congressman.

Army Sgt. Bob MacLean spent three years as a prisoner of war after being captured by the Chinese at age 18. He buried hundreds of his fellow soldiers who succumbed to frostbite, torture and starvation.

Fifty years later, the men are bonded by the war that shaped their lives and their desire to keep its memories - both good and bad - alive. They often visit local classrooms to share their experiences with students, and Ford will be among a group going on a weeklong tour of South Korea to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ceasefire.

"The Korean War will go back to being the forgotten war pretty soon," Ford said. "The people who fought in World War II are just about extinct. We're next. I call this our last hurrah."

There are about 1.8 million Korean War veterans nationwide.

Ford, Koh and MacLean don't gloss over the horrors of those years. They share many of the same memories as a group of Korean War veterans who meet privately in Tampa once a week in a post traumatic stress disorder group.

Glenn Smith, the doctor who leads the group, said the Korean War was unique in the experience of American veterans because the country was so quick to move on at the war's end. Many veterans ignored their memories as they set about building careers and families, only to be confronted by them in retirement.

The agreement signed July 27, 1953, was just a truce that did not permanently end all hostilities or lead to peace, and Smith said many vets are quick to point out the shortfall.

"For them, there's a lack of closure. Somehow things were left undone. That adds to the impact of the war on them."

Indeed, the veterans said their memories can be as chilling as the Korean winter that left so many of them with frostbite and which is still causing health problems 50 years later. Ford, now 69, literally shivers when he remembers the Chosin Reservoir battle and its 30-degrees below zero temperatures.

Some of the memories are bittersweet.

MacLean remembers the Korean family forced to house a group of POWs in their home at Christmas time, but forbidden from speaking to the men. On Christmas Day, a small hole appeared in the dirt and straw wall which divided the hut and gradually began to grow larger until a hand reached through to hand the men some food. Words were never exchanged.

MacLean, 71, said he clung to the hope he'd eventually be freed.

"Of course we had hope," he said. "That's the only thing that kept you alive."

When MacLean came home, he married and raised seven children and never mentioned Korea to them until his sons were old enough to consider military service themselves.

"The country was trying to get back on its feet," said MacLean, originally from Malden, Mass. "They were more interested in buying refrigerators and televisions than in Korea."

These veterans refuse to dwell on the death and the destruction. Because they were just kids, they said, they somehow managed to enjoy themselves at least some of the time.

Among Ford's favorite stories is the day a lieutenant came up to him with a letter from the New Jersey Board of Education asking why Ford hadn't been attending school.

"I was a kid. I thought it was fun," said Ford, who learned how to drive a tank before he learned how to drive a car. "It was fun, even when I got wounded."

Ford was wounded in the chest by flying shrapnel when a mortar exploded next to the tank he was driving. It was so cold, he couldn't feel any pain and the blood froze his wounds shut.

He was sent home after 13 months in the war. A year after his return to the states, Ford started coughing up blood. A small piece of shrapnel had hit his lung and been undetected. He spent the next 2 1/2 years in the hospital.

"The happy part of this story was the last year I was in the VA hospital in East Orange (N.J.) ... remember candy stripers?" Ford recalls with a sly smile. "We were married 47 years. She just passed away last June."

For Koh, 69, the war set him on a path he could have never imagined. He said he came to the United States in 1955 with no money and wearing borrowed clothes, feeling obligated to work harder than everyone else to show his appreciation for those who fought.

Koh enlisted in the Army and returned to work in military intelligence in South Korea. He later started an import-export business, which brought him to Florida. Today, he owns a golf course north of Tampa where his neatly appointed office is a shrine to Korean War veterans.

Now, he helps local veterans groups raise money through a tournament at his golf course and helps finance other Korean War veterans projects.

"Time is getting short and we are losing everybody," Koh said. "I want to shake as many hands as I can while they are still living."

For some veterans, the outpouring of thanks from a generation of Koreans made their sacrifices during war worth the cost, MacLean said.

"There has never been a war fought that has the support and the gratitude of the people it helped like the Korean War," he said. "For that reason, I feel like we were the winners."
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6391434.htm

ON THE NET

Korean War 50th Anniversary: http://korea50.army.mil/



© 2003 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.bayarea.com

BIZARRE CONVERSATION ON THE HOUSE FLOOR...

return to the Flag Burning Page

The Bizarre
Conversation of
Representatives
CLICK-HERE ForFullText/Links!
Robert K. Dornan (R - CA)
and
James M. Talent (R - MO)
Winner of a SpinnWebe
Twisted Award

Note from Warren:

The Following is the unchanged transcript of the 2-23-95 discussion on the floor of the House of Representatives, as reported in the Congressional Record. It took Representative Dornan until about Midnight to say everything you see here. The general theme of the discussion was the necessity of changing the Constitution of the United States in order to allow laws against flag desecration, especially in light of the anniversary of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.

It is a very large and unwieldy document, so I have included links to the most interesting sections. These sections have also been highlighted in Bold Text for your viewing ease.
Not one word has been changed

An Index to the most "interesting" parts of this document:

* Rep. Dornan's plane goes down over the Pacific
* Relative heights of New York's landmark buildings
* Shark Attacks
* Davy Crockett dies at the Alamo
* Meet Rep. Dornan's uncle: the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz
* The Official Marine Corp Coffee Mug in Rep. Dornan's Bronco
* Rep. Talent asks: The Tinman?
* 1939 - a great year for American Cinema
* Japanese attack Santa Barbara
* Rep Dornan finds out he's not actually related to show-biz celeb Fred Allen
* But he was raised with the children of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby
* John Wayne's best-known movie role?
* C-SPAN's Arbitron ratings during tort reform debates
* Not just a coffee mug - he also has a calendar and poster
* Anyone here know where Jerry Horrick is?
* John Wayne learned his style from Pvt. W. Watson
* Volcanic formations on Mt. Suribachi
* One more shameless pitch for increased C-SPAN ratings
* Purple Heart trivia - did you know...?
* Finally! The point! We should have laws against burning flags in front of wheelchair-bound Veterans
* Rep. Dornan plans to get larger flags in front of both of his houses
* Midnight- time to submit newspaper articles to the Congressional Record
* Killing Robots of the Future - Less Marine deaths?

Feb-23-95 (HOUSE) TIME: 2310

Note: This document is the unofficial version of the Congressional Record. The printed Congressional Record produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version.

PART CONGRESSIONAL RECORD (HOUSE)
DATE February 23, 1995
PAGE PAGE H2168

TITLE
TIME: 2310 MORE ON IWO JIMA

TEXT The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Largent). Under the Speaker`s announced policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dornan) is recognized for 50 minutes.

Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, it is awfully difficult to capture in a few minutes the essence of the history of the United States through its United States Marine Corps on such a day as this 23d of February 1995. I consider this day a second birthday for me. Before my colleagues leave the floor, I will show them why. PAGE H2168 I will address it directly to you, Mr. Speaker, because I believe you are a role model for young people around this country as are the four gentlemen that spoke a little while ago, African Americans, all proud citizens, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, discussing things from their hearts as they see it. And my second term colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hoke) and the two other freshman Members, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Bryant) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Christensen), who spoke, also role models.

But the reason today is special for me and why I began on the 15th anniversary of Iwo Jima to begin to research it is on February 23, 1960, I was ferrying, as a National Guard pilot, my 6 years of active duty were behind me, an Air Force F-86 Sabrejet to be retired to the boneyard in Davis-Mothon in Arizona. So I had no water survival equipment. The plane flamed out over the San Fernando Valley. I took it out over the water to try and air-start, got it started and it flamed out again. And then I wanted to punch off these long-range refueling tanks that were to get me to Arizona.

When I punched them off, only one came off so I had a 200-gallon tank at 6 1/2 pounds each gallon. That was a 1300-pound anvil under one wing. I tried to get in Point Magu. And in those days, you were supposed to punch off your canopy. Now you keep it on for a helicopter to foam you in case of fire. I punched off the canopy. I had not flown in 73 days. The plane had not flown in 5 months. It was the hangar queen, last one off the field. PAGE H2168 I was available, because I was what was called a `Guard bum` going from job to job, dreaming about going to Congress, dreaming about doing lots of things in life and doing lots of different jobs with 4 kids and hopefully more to come.

And I saw that field. And as the dirt and dust came up off the floor of the aircraft when the canopy went off and a pop stickle went flying by. Both my eyes were closed from grit. I got one open and I could see the headline: `Pilot on Last Flight Dies with Last Jet out of San Francisco-Van Nuys.` So I turned out toward the water. I was going to punch out along the beach. I decided the plane would jerk from the ejection and of course go inland and hit an orphanage and kill children and nuns. So I turned it out to sea. I intended still to come down in the surf, and I landed 6 miles out in the ocean. No Mae West, no raft, no survival equipment, and began to instantly drown.

I did not get this helmet off. I had scratches on my face trying to unsnap a simple snap that comes off that easily tonight. But I could not get the helmet off. Got my gloves, jacket off. That was it. Could not get my boots off and began to roll under the water every time I tried to get my knotted laces off. And I had called on Guard emergency channel communication with no Navy or Air Force at Oxnard Air Force Base. And the helicopter was scrambled that had been assigned to duty that very morning for the first time in history, 1 hour before my ejection. It is still there today, 35 years later on the 23rd of February. And the helicopter came out, coldest day of the year, wind, high waves, whitecaps everywhere. And he saw this 2-inch white stripe on this red helmet, a whitecap that would not go away. And he told the one enlisted man in the back, keep your eye on it. Circling down, this little 2-man helicopter, and this ensign saw the whitecap disappear. That was me drowning.

PAGE H2168 I slipped below the water. And all of my colleagues here tonight are Christian gentleman and they will understand that I am not being corny. This is true.
I said goodbye to my wife and four kids. I prepared to meet God. I was so nervous and embarrassed that I was flippant, because I literally said in my mind, Jesus, here I come, ready or not, and slipped beneath the water. I remembered a story I had read on drowning on someone that had been plunked out of the bottom of a pool. I said, the water is warmer than I am. I am taking in gulps. It is painless, and I thought about my wife hanging up the laundry. Again, corny but true, that is just what she was doing because that is what she did that time in the morning in the backyard. I pictured her being alone with four kids, and I said, I cannot give up. I have to try one more time.
It seemed hopeless, but I kicked to the surface and I came up. Here was this Navy helicopter, and he dropped a harness. PAGE H2168 I was begging the guy, yelling, I could taste blood from scratching my throat to jump in. I put my arm in the harness, and he jerked me about 10 feet up in the air, and I fell back under the water down, 5, 6, 8 feet. I figured I was gone again.

I came up and I said, well, this is ridiculous. I grabbed the harness, pushed it away from me and told him to level off, waited a few moments. And then I put my two arms into it and he, never having rescued anybody, immediately took off for the base and went up to 1,500 feet, traffic pattern altitude. Of course, that is the World Trade Tower, the Empire State Building is only 1250. And I cannot even feel my muscles. I am in early hyperthermia holding it just against me like this.
I did not want to go under the water and come up and hang on the harness. PAGE H2168 Slowly he brings me up inside. And when this enlisted man grabbed my arm, I begged him not to touch me until he closed this little trap door in the belly of the helicopter. When we got back to the base, he said, corny but true, that I was being circled by two or three huge sharks. They had lost four men to sharks in a Navy boat the week before.
That is one of the reasons they put the helicopter on rescue duty. `I didn`t think we would beat the sharks to you.`
February 23 became my birthday. It was the 15th anniversary of Iwo Jima, and I went to the history book to see what happened on that day. It is interesting how God lets history be attracted to some days.

PAGE H2168 And this is the day the siege began at the Alamo. I like that. It was the day that Zachary Taylor, to be President someday, although very briefly, died in office at the beginning of his second year, defeated General Santa Ana at the battle of Buena Vista in Mexico. That was 11 years after Santa Ana had tortured and killed every survivor at the Alamo, including men who served in this Chamber like Davy Crockett.

And then I saw that it was the day that President-elect Lincoln snuck into town because he had secretly avoided an assassination plot that had been foiled in Baltimore by Pinkerton Guards. He was getting ready to be sworn in. It was March 5 in those days, right up till Roosevelt`s third term.

Then I saw that it was the date that the Japanese shelled the oil refineries in Santa Barbara, 1942, three years before Iwo Jima. And how my mother had panicked in Manhattan and called her sister and my uncle, the Tinman on the Wizard of Oz, because all L.A. was H 2169 under a big alert from the Japanese attacking us. How things changed in two years.

PAGE H2168 And then I saw Iwo Jima. And it jumped at me, and I began to research this battle and the death toll for the United States Marine Corps, their worst battle ever.
The Marine Corps had a little reception down in the bottom of the Rayburn Building. They give us these little cups. It will be in my Bronco for a long time with that `Semper Fi` staring at me.
The Marine Corps is one of our beloved, the smallest of our services, but a beloved service because they have had some of our toughest conflicts.
PAGE H2168 What is not known is that next month in Okinawa, where more Marines died but basically in an Army battle, we lost more men than we lost in Iwo Jima.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from St. Louis, MO (Mr. Talent).

PAGE H2169 Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I have always been fascinated by the story, and really, the hair on the back of my neck went up when you told that story. I am certainly very glad, and I think the country has been very well-served, that a sovereign who has always guided this Nation`s fortunes chose to pull you out of that water at that point. PAGE H2169 The gentleman said something. I have been listening to the whole story. I just had to ask the gentleman, did you say that your uncle was the Tinman on the Wizard of Oz?

Mr. DORNAN. Born and bred in Roxsbury, Massachusetts, Boston Democrat, who in the 1940`s, with George Murphy and Ronald Reagan, changed his loyalty to the Republican Party and died in 1979 in St. John`s Hospital, same floor as John Wayne, who died 4 days later. They were good Republicans, you bet.

TIME: 2320 PAGE H2169 Mr. TALENT. I thank the gentleman, for that is one of my favorite movies from certainly my favorite year of motion pictures.
Mr. DORNAN. It was the best year.
Mr. TALENT. It really was. I do not mean to interrupt the gentleman`s story, but I really had to ask. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

PAGE H2169 Mr. DORNAN. He told me a story about how the Japanese this night 53 years ago shelled those oil refineries in Santa Barbara, how they hid under the dining room table in their house on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills and how it really was a massive alert and a lot of people were hurt, I think a couple killed, by falling anti-aircraft fire because there were no Japanese planes over Los Angeles.
Mr. TALENT. I was not aware that the Japanese had ever shelled the mainland.
Mr. DORNAN. They had. They had struck our mainland on this very day 53 years ago. And Jack Haley like his friend Fred Allen who I used to call `Uncle` until I found out later there was no blood, but all of that show business community then all started to go overseas. My uncle went to Italy and North Africa. Wayne`s case, the `Sands of Iwo Jima,` as Sergeant Striker. That is probably his best known role.
Yes, it is fun to have an uncle who has become a legend.
Mr. TALENT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

PAGE H2169 Mr. DORNAN. The Marine Corps picture at Iwo Jima has also become a legend. It is an icon for the Corps.
I am going to see in just a few brief short minutes for those people, Mr. Speaker, who are channel surfing tonight, sometimes we say 1,300,000 watching, but after an excellent discussion on tort reform and it was fascinating, but you have to pay attention, because we are changing history here these first 50 some days of 100, and before that, a discussion that had its points on affirmative action and level playing field, but good men of conscience and women of different conscience coming to different solutions.
This is something that I do because President Reagan ordered me to do it, personally, on several occasions, once when I was in a room with him, alone with Nancy and Ronald Reagan when he was declared the winner in the New Hampshire primary. I was the only one there with the Reagans. I thought, what a moment of history, flashing, I think it was ABC, Ronald Reagan the winner. He had beaten a terrific World War II hero, boby mangled 50 years ago on April 14 of this year, Bob Dole, and it was in that race he had beaten, really George Bush was the finalist going into New Hampshire, he had beaten Ronald Reagan big time in Ohio with the help of a state coordinator friend of mine Floyd Brown.

PAGE H2169 I looked at President Reagan, he said, I can`t believe this, it`s like a dream, that I`m going to maybe go on to win and be part of American history. In Reagan`s good-bye speech on January 11, and I meant to have that here and put it in the Record, his verbatim words, he said words to the effect in his good-bye 9 days before George Bush was inaugurated, our 40th President said, in sort of putting down his text, although it was the way he was using the teleprompters, he said, I want to talk to the children of America. I want you to study the history of this country. And he mentioned D-Day. I believe, I am not sure, he mentioned Iwo Jima. He mentioned a World War I battle. He mentioned battles in our revolutionary period.

I just visited Lexington Green on the 19th of this month, a few days ago, a stirring place. I was shocked to see that an African-American, Crispus Attucks, who died on Lexington Green, the 9th, killed in action, this man is not on the memorial with the other great names, John Brown and Robert Monroe. I remember Reagan saying in his good-buy speech, `Young people, if your parents at the kitchen table don`t teach you about those who have gone before you and gave their blood to build this great country of ours, I give you permission to get angry at your parents.` And by extension I am sure he meant the teachers. We are not teaching the history of this Nation.

And how many college campuses today? This is a school day, spring semester. How many high school campuses in America? How many grade schools? This happened when I was in the seventh grade, and we were hungry to get the news reports to learn about young men just a few years older then us dying, and not just men. At this reception tonight where I got this cup and this beautiful calendar, two-sided poster, Paul McHale, a Desert Storm marine veteran, one of our colleagues, had brought in the best film, black and white and color I had ever seen, on Iwo Jima, and here were nurses on the bloody beaches, Yellow Beach, Red Beach, Green Beach, on the beaches holding these dying men in their arms. They had been flown in from Guam on C-47 `Cooney Birds` and were flying these terribly wounded men on a long plane flight back to Guam for hours. Many of the men died on planes or died in the hospitals in Guam, and here is this nurse on film saying that she never felt an affection for these young men, like they were her children, or young brothers, until she had children of her own. I found out tonight we lost 93 doctors. Doctors. That is how many doctors. Imagine how many we must have had mixed among the men to have 23 killed. We lost over 100, I think 127 paramedics. I did not learn that until this evening, at this Marine reception in the Rayburn Building. In every category, the death toll was tremendous. It said that most of the people died a violent death.
PAGE H2169 I asked my West Pointer, Bill Fallon, who is my legislative assistant for defense affairs, I said, Bill, for obvious reasons, get me someone from Arkansas who won the Medal of Honor on that sulfuric, death-smelling, cordite-smelling hell on earth, and he picks one out from Arkansas, representative of all the other 27, 14 of the 27 Medal of Honor winners died. One of them was H 2170 sitting up in that gallery who was only 17 years and 6 days when he threw himself on a grenade and pulled another one under him on February 20, day 2. The flag went on up day 5 of a 36-day battle and all the records that I am reading say they expected it to be a cakewalk and over in 4 days. But not General `Howlin` Smith. He said this is going to be the worst battle in Marine Corps history, and he was right. `Howlin` Smith.

Here is Wilson D. Watson, Wilson Douglas Watson. Private. Just a private. But 24 years old. And these men looked like they were 30 at 24, in every theater of the world, because they were men in those days at 18 and 19.
Here I recall Clinton on Ted Koppel on Lincoln`s birthday 1992 telling Koppel, I was only a boy of 23 when I was in London trying to avoid serving. A boy at 23? How come Lucas up there was a man 6 days past his 17th birthday?

PAGE H2169 But here is what Wilson Watson did. Joined in Arkansas, born 18 February 1921. Actually he was born, I see here, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as an automatic rifleman, serving with the Second Battalion, 9th Marines, and this stunned me when I read this sitting here because I went out in the field for 3 days with the Marine Corps in Vietnam, May 20 through 23, 1966, with the Second Battalion of the 9th Marines, Echo Company, I recall.
It does not say his company here. And the young commander that allowed me to go in on a Sparrow Hawk designed by a colleague of ours who I served with here for 8 years. He is watching. I called him in Virginia and told him to watch, Ben Blaz, one of the most distinguished people I have ever served with in this Chamber. Brigadier General Benjamin Blaz was the commander of the 9th Marines and we did not discover that until we were sitting back here about 3 rows talking one day and I told him about my days of combat with the Marines as a volunteer reporter from a small Santa Monica newspaper, and he said, Bob, in that distinguished way of his, I was the commander of the 9th Marines. This young Medal of Honor winner was with the 9th Marines in a different time.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, sometimes the reach of this House is amazing. The young captain who took me out with his unit and let me on that H-34 Sparrow Hawk helicopter to go into a village that was surrounded, designed, I repeat, by Ben Blaz, his name was something like Jerry Horrick, Horricks, he lost his legs. Two months later, by chance, I saw it in the Saturday Evening Post, and I asked him, because I saw his wings, or we got to talking about his flying, what was an F-8 Crusader pilot doing as a ground Marine company commander?

PAGE H2169
And he said, `I want to be Commandant someday and I want to go all the way in my career.` He said, `Flying is important, giving air cover to these kids is important, but I figured if you`re going to make it to the top, you better be a ground Marine and see what the gunfire`s like at the grass level.`

PAGE H2170
TIME: 2330 There he was, and 2 months later he lost his legs. I believe he was from Glendale. If anybody, Mr. Speaker, knows Jerry Horrick, something like that, please write me. I would love to see how he is doing.

PAGE H2170 Anyway, young Wilson Watson, second battalion 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division, the same division in Vietnam, during action against the enemy forces on Iwo Jima. By the way, all of those islands are volcanic islands. For action over 2 days, the 26th and 27th of February 1945.
With his squad abruptly halted by intense fire from enemy fortifications in the high rocky ridges and crags commanding the line of advance, Pvt. Watson boldly rushed 1 pillbox and fired into the embrasure with his weapon, keeping the enemy pinned down singlehandedly until he was in a position to hurl in a grenade, and then running to the rear of the emplacement to destroy the retreating Japanese and enable his platoon to take its objective. Again pinned down at the foot of a small hill, he dauntlessly scaled the jagged incline under fierce mortar and machinegun barrages and, with his assistant BAR man, charged the crest of the hill, firing from his hip.
This is where John Wayne learned his style. PAGE H2170 Fighting ferociously against Japanese troops attacking with grenades and knee mortars from the reverse slope, he stood fearlessly erect in his exposed position to cover the hostile entrenchments and held the hill under savage fire for 15 minutes, killing 60 Japanese before his ammunition was exhausted and his platoon was able to join him. His courageous initiative and valiant fighting spirit against devastating odds were directly responsible for the continued advance of his platoon, and his inspiring leadership throughout this bitterly fought action reflects the highest credit upon Pvt. Watson and the U.S. Naval Service.

I do not know who wrote this, Mr. Speaker, but I believe it should say the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps. Naval services does not sound impactful enough at the end.
Wilson Watson lived. I do not know if he is still alive 50 years later. Someone will probably write and tell me. PAGE H2170 This seems so far way, 50 years, and yet it is not, Mr. Speaker. Last year I met Joe Rosenthal, the only survivor of the scene that day who took that picture. He was in the Rayburn Building in room 2117, the anteroom of the Armed Services room, and I called the photographer over and any Member lucky enough to be passing through the anteroom at that moment got a picture with Joe Rosenthal against a big, beautiful oil painting that is the prominent feature, along with the capstand taken up from the harbor of Havana that literally came off of the U.S.S. Maine that was sunk in that harbor in 1898, those are the two main objects of yes, military art, and posed with Joe. He is healthy, and all of the other six men at that second flag-raising, because there was a smaller flag raised first. What a touch in history to hold Joe`s hand in front of that magnificent picture. As some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when Sonny Montgomery began a series of very touching 5-minute speeches pointed out, if you want to go to your library, this book, `Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor,` by Bill Ross, who I learned tonight passed on, which was published in 1983, and this is a dog-eared copy from one of our majors in the liaison office. This book I hope he will let me use when I fly to Iwo Jima at the end of next month for the commemorative of this 6-day battle. I flew around this island in an old seaplane flying to Vietnam, I have looked at it from the air at high altitude, and I do not believe we should have ever given it back to the Japanese. It is not used for anything now. It is 8-1/2 square miles of junk real estate is the way one hero described it.
I would like to read, Mr. Speaker, a letter written by a veteran just a few years ago in 1987 sitting on top of the edge of Mount Suribachi, writing it to a friend. And it is Col. John W. Ripley, one of the young officers in that horrendous battle, and he made his way back, his solo pilgrimage to this bloody site of so much American heroism, and he writes to his friend, Ross McKenzie, I repeat, from the top of Mount Suribachi, 556-foot mountain, the only high ground really on this volcanic rock. This is an actual extinct volcano, and all of the lava from centuries of erupting that poured in a northwesterly direction giving it a big pork chop shape, and as I said, 8 1/2 miles.

Colonel Ripley says:
PAGE H2170 Dear Ross, From this most unlikely spot I am inspired to write you for reasons I can`t fully explain. Certainly you have received no other letters from here I would wager, and you may find this interesting. It`s the middle of the night - cold, windy, uncomfortable & profoundly moving.
He is writing by flashlight. `I`m looking down on a tiny island 3 miles wide and 5 miles long. Down there, and here where I`m writing by flashlight,` a lot of these figures are a little off, so I corrected them, and I hope he does not mind if he is listening, where 5,951 marines died. There were another 870-some Navy men, Air Force men, air crews, 220-some men died on the U.S.S. Bismark Sea which was sunk by a Japanese kamikaze, Coast Guard men bringing the landing craft in earlier, Navy men of all types. Six thousand eight hundred twenty-one is the precise figure of everyone.
The mountain is Suribachi, the island, Iwo Jima. Of the hundreds of thousands of words written about this place, nothing comes close to describing its starkness, its inestimable cost and now, sadly, the poverty of its abandonment.
PAGE H2170
The entire island is a shrine, mostly Japanese, but a few American - only a few. Americans don`t seem to care about such things when, as is the case here, it`s inconvenient. H 2171 And yet this island, its name and most especially this very spot where I sit - where the flag was raised - is immortalized in our national consciousness for as long as there is an America.

`The debris and detritus of war remain even after nearly 43 years. Rusty vehicle hulks, wrecked boats, sunken ships, canteens, mess kits, thousands of rounds of corroded ammunition, blockhouses, pillboxes, trenches, abandoned airfields, large naval shore guns, artillery, etc. And beneath my feet remains of - ` he says 22. It is actually 19,000 dead Japanese. We did take 1,083 POW`s out of a garrison of over 20. He says, `We hated them then. There is more respect now, defenders, brave men who die at their post.

`Rupert Brooke,` an English poet, `said it perfectly; `Here, in some small corner of a forgotten field, will be forever England.` And this brutally stinking sulfuric rock depressing to see, demoralizing as it has lost its once vital importance and our nation`s once great concern, will be forever America. It will be forever in the memory of those 75,000 Marines who fought here.`

PAGE H2170 I learned yesterday from Commandant Mundy, addressing at the beginning of the year, as is the tradition in the Armed Services Committee where he said that of the 27 Marine battalion commanders, and we only have 24 now, Mr. Speaker, 24 in the whole Marine Corps battalions, 27 fought in combat there, and 18 of those battalion commanders fell. Some of them did survive, but were taken off the island badly wounded, and more than a third died.

He said:
PAGE H2171 Of the 75,000 Marines who fought here suffered wounds here and the 5800 who gave their blood and lives to its black soil. Again Rupert Brooke. `In that rich earth, a richer dust concealed. Their hopes, their happiness, their dreams ended here. And if we fail to honor them in our memory and our prayers, we should be damned to hell for such failure.`

TIME: 2340 PAGE H2171
``I brought a small team here, Ross, to survey the island for future exercise use. The Japanese would prefer that we did not exercise here, but that will be over my dead body.` I do not know, Mr. Speaker, who won this debate 7 years ago.
I find it hard to believe and impossible to accept that our Government gave this island back to the Japanese. It is as if we gave them Gettysburg or Arlington National Cemetery. Americans died here in such numbers that in 9 1/2 months the toll here would have equaled, if it had lasted 9 1/2 months, would have equaled the entire 10-11 years of the Vietnam struggle. The Marine Corps should never lose its right to exercise here, and I am proud of having something to do with assuring that it will be so. Yours, I, John, John Ripley, Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired.
Mr. Speaker, it is amazing how we will pass people on the street and not know what they have done for their country, just a senior gentleman or lady walking by, we say hello or nod. We do not know that they laid their life on the altar of liberty, of freedom, sometimes in foreign countries far away, and went on with their lives with the memories of all the friends of their youth who did not make it.
PAGE H2171 Gene Rider in Navy Times wrote a column a few days ago, well, actually it is dated a few days from now, February 27, so it is the current Navy Times, and I think it sums it up better than anything I have read. I would like to read a few paragraphs from it, Mr. Speaker. This is Gene Ryder. I hope he is listening.
He is a CBS Radio correspondent who lives in San Diego, and if he has a friend listening, call Gene to hear his words going out to Guam where our day begins, Alaska, and the Virgin Islands and all 50 States, thanks to the wonder of C-SPAN.

He writes:
PAGE H2171 Iwo Jima, valor, death, and a raised flag. The high command expected Iwo Jima to be a 4-day piece of cake for the 42,000 Marines of the 4th and 5th Divisions. But Lieutenant General Howland M. `Howling Mad` Smith warned it would be the most grueling battle in the Corps` history. He was the senior Marine officer in the entire Pacific, but he was outranked. In the first 18 hours alone, 2,312 men had fallen.

That is double D-Day, Mr. Speaker. `The 3d Division, brought along as a floating reserve,` that is our division that fought for a decade in Vietnam in the I Corps around Da Nang, `wasn`t expected to be needed. It was committed February 20, day 2,` and the first unit landed on day 3, the 21st. `As planned, 30,000 men landed on day 1. Most massed on the beachhead area.` I do look forward to walking these beaches next month, Mr. Speaker.

`Defense perimeters had not been fully formed, because the tanks lost traction in the volcanic ash. Heavy artillery landing was delayed by heavy surf.` I witnessed that surf in these films this evening, Mr. Speaker, waves coming over giant Amtraks and landing vehicles, and they completely disappeared under as heavy a surf as I have ever seen along the California coast.

PAGE H2171 He said, `The congestion on the beach had grown into a monumental snarl of damaged tanks, landing crafts, smashed equipment. The Japanese are holding their fire. They had their fields of fire perfectly worked out.` One of our Marine colonels told me tonight they had drilled holes in the volcanic rock where they inserted mortar tubes so you could come along and drop a tube, and it was perfectly positioned to pick out certain people on the beach. You could move on after you dropped the mortar shell into its barrel.
He said;
Things started to improve on the beach, false feeling of security. The heavy artillery landed. Twenty-five miles offshore, 60 Japanese kamikaze planes in several waves swooped in to hit the smaller escort carriers. Detected early on, many were shot down. Two slammed into one of our big supercarriers, the Saratoga that had been battling since 1942 all across the Pacific, killing 128 on the Saratoga, wounding another almost 200. Another kamikaze crashed midship on the Bismarck Sea. Bombs went off, and engulfed in great flames, the carrier sank quickly, 812 sailors into the icy water, 218 dying.

PAGE H2171 Iwo Jima, `Sulfur Island,` gateway to Japan, populated by 21,000 subterranean troops, and I saw an eyewitness soldier tonight who said they were not on the island, they were in the island.
There were caves all the way through and tunnels. `The almost invisible smog of smoky drizzle that smelled of cordite and death and sulfur; the Japanese commander, Lt. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, he knew he could not win, but he and his troops were dedicated to death.`

Mr. Speaker, think, as I read these words, of this inane, stupid argument of how we were going to present the B-29 fuselage of the Enola Gay that dropped the first atom bomb on August 6 at though we were in some kind of racist crusade against the Japanese islands. This battle, and the battle 50 years ago next month in Okinawa, just give a tiny feeling of the major death toll that we would have suffered.
PAGE H2171
I learned last week that we are awarding Purple Hearts today in Somalia, Grenada, Panama, Purple Hearts have gone to several men putting their lives on the line in Haiti to restore order to the pathetic little island, and these Purple Hearts were struck in 1945, this year 50 years ago, and we are still drawing from that supply, because these were from a lot ordered in thousands that we thought we would be giving out in the invasion of Japan and the major islands, and the death toll and wounding toll that we would take there. It is one of the amazing pieces of small information about current Purple Hearts and how many are still stored away.

General Kuribayashi, graduated from their military college, their West Point, in 1914, and he knew that his victory would be in showing Marines what lay in store for them when they invaded Japan and in denying them the emergency airfield they needed for crippled B-29 bombers at the halfway point of the Guam-Saipan to Tokyo air express.

At this point, let me add something, Mr. Speaker. There should have been somebody here tonight whose life was saved by these sacrifices, a chairman, a brand-new chairman, after being here over 22 years, Ben Gilman of New York, who was a B-29 crewman, told me that his life was saved after Japanese fighters shot up his B-29 over the mainland of Honshu Island. He could not make it back to his base further south, Saipan, Tinian, or Guam. He recovered on Iwo Jima. He would have gone in the water like so many crewmen from his bomb wing there that died at sea, shark attacks, some of the worst shark-infested waters in the world.

PAGE H2171
Witness what happened to the crew of the Indianapolis that delivered the first H 2172 atom bomb to Tinian. They sunk. They were not accounted for for 3 days, a terrible military `Snafu`, and 500 of the 800 or 900 that died in the water were torn apart by sharks.

Ben Gilman told me he owes his life to taking Iwo Jima, which makes a good point. Did we have to take Iwo Jima? Would the Japanese or Germans, if their roles had been reversed, have taken Iwo Jima? They might not have. They would have told their pilots, `Press on. If you do not make it, that is OK, we have got teenagers to take your place.`

These thousands, these 6,821 marines and sailors and Army Air force men, Coast Guardsmen who died, they gave their lives in a direct trade at about four or five to one for the 27,000 men in the air crews and fighters and mostly B-29`s that made it back to Iwo Jima, coming back shot up from all of those raids in March and April and May and June and July and through August 15, 1945 when the cessation of shooting came about looking forward to the treaty of surrender on the deck of the Missouri on September 2.

PAGE H2171 So Ben Gilman is a living testament of somebody who would not be in this House if it had not been for this sacrifice and the atom bombs would not have brought an end to this horrible death toll on both sides. A million Japanese survived the war to have children and grandchildren that are alive in a dynamic nation and its economy today because we dropped those two bombs.

I am happy to say, under the lead of Joe McDade from Pennsylvania here, and my hero in this House, our Gary Cooper, Sam Johnson of Texas, who I watched take on the head of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and say, `Would you have dropped the bomb, Doctor?` And he says, `I would have obeyed orders.` He said, `No; would you have dropped the bomb if you were Harry Truman?` `No; I would not.` Sam held up that hand that has seen so much torture in Vietnam, he holds up the hand and looks at him and says, `That is the difference between you and me. I would have dropped the bomb.`

PAGE H2172 TIME: 1150 That is our Texan, Sam Johnson of Dallas. We won that battle. I continue reading from Gene Rider`s Navy Times story.
PAGE H2172 Big guns silent, tanks mired in mud, no spotting airplanes on day four, but it seemed eerily quiet. Perfect day for infantry. Leaning into near gale force gusts and driving sheets of rain, Marines begin probing the steep bouldered slopes of Suribachi, flame throwers, demolition charges, grenades, and men winning the Medal of Honor, destroyed pill boxes and bunkers as our patrols drove upward. There were sporadic nasty skirmishes and casualties. By nightfall it was apparent that only a few of the 2,000 Japanese packed into the caves on that mountain on the southwest corner of the island in all those labyrinths at several levels, they remained alive in there.
The weather on day 5, different. Greatly improved. Lt. Colonel Chandler Johnson, I don`t know if he is still alive, commander of the Second Battalion, 28th Regiment, had seen the totals through day three. 4,574 of his men killed or wounded. In the 5th Division, 2,057 men killed or wounded. A great many were from his own battalion. He decided they needed a topping out party, a flag on top of Suribachi. He called together Lt. Harold Schrier, a route to follow up the steep slopes he said. Take this folded flag, a smaller one, and put this on top of the hill.

See how men will die for a flag? And we debated all night a few years ago in this well, Duncan Hunter led the debate, all night long to pass a simple law that you cannot burn Old Glory in front of veterans like these, some of them in wheelchairs. And we lost that debate. When we are through with our 100 days, maybe, just maybe, we will revisit whether or not you have a right to burn a flag in front of courageous men and those Army nurses and Marine nurses and Navy nurses, excuse me, that went in to help the Marine Corps.

PAGE H2172 So he says put this flag, his simple order, put this on top of the hill. Preceded by a patrol that met no opposition, E Platoon, 40 men plus litter bearers, notice everywhere they went, they have litter bearers or doctors with them. I repeat, 820-some paramedics died with all the Marines fighting. How many times must the word `medic` have pierced the din of artillery and machine gun and flame thrower fire there.

He said with their litter bearers they go up. Slowly they make it up single file the steep slope to the crest. Rifles and grenades ready. Some of the men scour the crater`s debris, and there is a huge crater there. They found a pipe. They lashed the colors to it, and at 10:31 a.m. the Stars and Stripes went up and whipped in the blustery wind.
Sergeant Lou Lowery took pictures for `Leatherneck,` a great magazine 50 years later. And a Japanese suddenly leapt up from a cave, fired, and just barely missed Low Lowery. A Marine gunned him down.
PAGE H2172 Marines handily won a skirmish that developed using rifles and grenades. It wasn`t planned. James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy, and what a handsome guy, he turned out to be 2 years later our first Secretary of Defense. I thought looking at the film today, they had pictures of him on the deck of the command ship, the El Dorado, but he was actually on the beach already, on Green Beach, and he is standing beside Gen. Howling Smith, where 23 Marines were killed right in that area within that very hour, and they watched that flag unfurl. It was a very emotional moment. Our Marines that were in our liaison department particularly asked me to point out what James V. Forrestal said. He set that handsome square jaw of his and he said `General Howling,` pointing up to the flag on Suribachi, the earlier smaller flag, `this means a Marine Corps for 500 years.` Howling Mad then choked up.

They soon returned to the El Dorado command ship two miles offshore. CBS asked for recorded interviews. And General Smith ordered Sgt. Ernest Thomas, one of the flag raisers, to come on board for the interview. He was the very senior sergeant. Afterwards Thomas had one of the thrills of his life. A hot bath, his first in days, and a hot meal, and he couldn`t wait yet to get back to his outfit.
A few days later he died on Iwo Jima. He gave up his life. That was his last hot shower, his last hot meal. The banner atop Suribachi was a lift for the Marines in the foxholes down in all the lower part of the island. The sailors on the beach and on the ships, they saw it.

PAGE H2172 This is captured on film, I just saw it a few hours ago, Mr. Speaker, exuberant yells, ships blasting whistles, ships` bells ringing, horns rang out. Lt. Col. Chandler Johnson was jubilant. He had to have that flag as a souvenir for his battalion which had paid such a price for its role in taking the mountain. He sent a runner to scrounge up another flag.
The officer on one of the landing ship tanks at the beach broke out the ship`s ceremonial flag. It was twice as large and delivered to the summit about an hour later. About then, a five foot five bespectacled 33-year-old civilian in Marine dungarees reached the top with a pack full of photographic gear.
He was joined by two Marine combat photographers. They were feeling put out by having missed the flag raising. Of course, that five foot five, 33-year-old, now 83, was none other than Joe Rosenthal, San Francisco Associated Press.

PAGE H2172 He saw the just delivered 4 by 8, a pretty big flag, that is the size I think I will replace my 5 by 7 with in front of my house here in Virginia, and that is what I will use in my house in Garden Grove. I am going to like that size the rest of my life, 4 by 8. He saw them tying the banner`s lanyards around a long pipe about to be positioned for hoisting.

Joe told me he had his back turned at this moment. He and sergeant Bill Genaust scurried 25 feet up. He is just loading, and just then six Marines struggled the unwieldy pipe upward, with that big flag starting to whip out in the stiff breeze. Joe told me he whipped around. Gene Rider has it here that he clicked his speedgraphic loaded with black and white film at the midpoint just at the right millisecond for this incredible, now an icon, historic photograph.

Then Bob Campbell, another Marine photographer, shooting from a different angle, and in these wonderful commemorative books that the Marine Corps published, you see Bob Campbell`s picture capturing the original H 2173 smaller flag being brought down by Marines, still ducking from sniper fire, and the big one going up. What an incredible moment that symbolizes to all the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen fighting all around the world. What a tribute to our beautiful Old Glory.

PAGE H2172 The Marines stood under the flag, looked across Iwo Jima, the view from 556 feet was much different from that scene from the foxholes and the caves and the Marines below. Keep in mind, there is 31 days of hellish fighting to continue. Five days of carnage and they owned a third of this 8 1/2 square miles of junk.
Rosenthal came down slowly from the top, made the rounds of the command posts and aid stations, and caught a ride on a press boat back out to the El Dorado. He wrote captions for his day`s pictures and made sure they were in the press pouch for the courier seaplane, probably a Catalina, back to Guam. There they would be developed, checked by censors, radioed stateside by CINCPAC`s high powered transmitters. He wasn`t sure of what he made up there at the top, he didn`t even get to see his work, and a day or so later the Associated Press radioed congratulations. And that turned out to be the defining event of his life.
Casualties mounted as the carnage erupted into a new fury, and as the 4th division on the eastern front, 3d division in the center and 5th division on the west hammered ahead with tanks, flame throwers, mortars, rockets, each day was heartbreak and it went on for 31 more days.
PAGE H2172 I ask permission to put the rest of this in the Record and close with this in the final minute or so, Mr. Speaker. This battle is not over, keeping our country strong. And here is another article after Gene Rider`s in the same Navy Times, if it had to be done all over again, how future Marines would take Iwo Jima in another way. They project their thinking, Chris Lawson, the Times staff writer, to 2010, and the star of this event is none other than the V-22 `Osprey.` On the ground it is the advanced armored amphibious vehicle, AAAU. These two systems are in doubt whether or not we are going to fully develop them for our great Corps. And it shows how this 36-day battle would have been shortened by vertical envelopment and putting our troops behind all of the Japanese forces and how much loss of life could have been prevented in this terrible conflict.

PAGE H2173 TIME: 0000 I would like to submit this for the Record and close again with those words that have been said 10 times at least tonight, that uncommon valor was a common virtue that day, 27 Medals of Honor and the debt that Americans born ever since, were too young to serve, will never, ever be able to repay except by studying this history and passing it onto the young men and women of our country, as Ronald Reagan requested.

PAGE H2173 (FROM THE NAVY TIMES, FEBRUARY 27, 1995) IWO JIMA: VALOR, DEATH AND A RAISED FLAG (BY GENE RIDER) The high command expected Iwo Jima to be a four-day piece of cake for the 42,000 Marines of the 4th and 5th divisions. But Lt. Gen. Holland M. `Howling Mad` Smith warned it would be the most grueling battle in the Corps` history. He was the senior Marine officer in the Pacific, but was outranked.
In the first 18 hours, 2,312 men had fallen. The 3rd division, brought along as floating reserve, wasn`t expected to be needed. It was committed on Feb. 20 and first unit landed on Day Three, Feb. 21.

PAGE H2173 As planned, 30,000 men landed on Day One, most massed in the beachhead area. Defense perimeters had not been fully formed because tanks lost traction in volcanic ash. The heavy artillery landing was delayed by a high surf and beach congestion, which had grown into a monumental snarl, of damaged tanks, landing craft and smashed equipment.
Much of the enemy`s firepower came from caves and labyrinths of Mount Suribachi, the 556-foot-high dead volcano overlooking our beachhead at the island`s southern tip. Much of our bombardment and air strikes were concentrated on Suribachi and by Day Three it had been jolted to its core.
Things were improving on the beach. Heavy artillery landed. But 25 miles offshore, 60 planes in several waves of a kamikaze mission swooped in to attack our escort carriers. Detected early on, many were shot down. Two slammed into the carrier Saratoga, killing 128 and wounding 192. Another crashed amidship on the Bismarck Sea. Engulfed by great flames, the carrier sank quickly and 812 sailors took to the icy waters, 218 dying.

PAGE H2173 Iwo Jima - Sulphur Island - gateway to Japan, populated by 21,000 subterranean troops, was almost invisible in a smog of smoky drizzle that smelled of death, sulphur and cordite. The Japanese commander, Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, knew he couldn`t win. But he and his troops were dedicated to death. Their victory would be in showing Marines what lay in store when they invaded Japan and in denying them the emergency airfield they needed for crippled B-29 bombers at the halfway point of the Guam-Saipan-to-Tokyo air expressway.
Big guns silent, tanks mired in mud, no spotting planes, dawn on Day Four seemed eerily quiet. It was a perfect day for infantry. Leaning into near-gale-force gusts that drove sheets of rain, Marines began probing the steep, bouldered slopes of Suribachi. Flame throwers, demolition charges and grenades destroyed pill boxes and bunkers as our patrols drove upward. There were sporadic nasty skirmishes and casualties. By nightfall, it was apparent that only a few of the 2,000 Japanese packed into caves and labyrinths at several levels remained.
The weather on Day Five was greatly improved. Lt. Col. Chandler Johnson, commander of the 2d Battalion, 28th Regiment, had seen the totals through Day Three - 4,574 men killed or wounded. Of the 2,057 5th Division men killed or wounded, a great many were from his battalion.

PAGE H2173
A `TOPPING-OUT` PARTY

Johnson thought it was time for a `topping-out` party. After giving Lt. Harold Schrier a route to follow up the steep slopes, he handed him a folded flag and said: `Put this on the top of the hill.`

Preceded by a patrol that met no opposition, E platoon - 40 men plus litter bearers - slowly made its way in single file up the steep slopes to the crest. Rifles and grenades ready, some of the men scouted the crater`s debris and found a pipe, lashed the colors to it and at 10:31 a.m. the Stars and Stripes whipped in the blustery wind.

PAGE H2173 Sgt. Lou Lowrey took pictures for Leatherneck magazine until a Japanese leaped up from a cave, fired and missed Lowery. A Marine gunned down the Japanese. Marines handily won a skirmish with rifles and grenades.
It wasn`t planned. James Forrestal, the secretary of the Navy, who had boarded the command ship Eldorado at Guam with Gen. Smith beside him, stood on Green Beach, where 23 Marines had been killed within the hour, and watched the flag unfurled. It was an emotional moment. Forrestal said, `Holland, this means a Marine Corps for 500 years.` `Howling Mad` choked up. They soon returned to the Eldorado two miles offshore, where SBC recorded interviews for later broadcast. Smith ordered Sgt. Ernest Thomas, one of the flag raisers, to come for an interview. Afterward, Thomas had a bath and a hot meal and couldn`t wait to get back to his outfit. He gave his life a few days later.

PAGE H2173 The banner atop Suribachi was a lift for Marines in foxholes, and sailors on the beach and on ships. Exuberant yells, whistles, ships` bells and horns rang out.
Lt. Col. Johnson was jubilant. He had to have that flag as a souvenir for his battalion, which had paid such a price for its role in taking Suribachi. He sent a runner to scrounge for another flag. An officer on the tank landing ship at the beach broke out the ship`s ceremonial flag. It was twice as large and was delivered to the summit about an hour later.
About then, a 5-foot-5 bespectacled 33-year-old civilian in Marine dungarees reached the top with a full pack of photo gear. He was joined by two Marine combat photographers. They were feeling put out by having missed the flag raising. Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press out of San Francisco, saw the just-delivered 4x8 banner`s lanyards being put around a long pipe about to be positioned for hoisting.

PAGE H2173 He and Sgt. Bill Genault scurried out 25 feet just as six Marines struggled the unwieldy pipe upward with the big flag whipping in the stiff breeze. Joe clicked his Speed Graphic loaded with black and white film at just the right millisecond for an historic picture. Genault shot the same scene in color movies until his film ran out. Pvt. Bob Campbell, the other Marine photographer, was shooting from another location and got a shot of the small flag being lowered with the new flag going up.
Marines stood under the flag and looked across Iwo Jima. The view from 556 feet was much different from that seen from foxholes, caves and ravines below. After five days of carnage, they owned one-third of this 8 1/2 square miles of junk real estate and had yet to reach Day One`s objective.
Rosenthal came down slowly from the top, made the rounds of command posts and aid stations and caught a ride on a press boat to the Eldorado. He wrote captions for his day`s pictures and made sure they were in the press pouch for the courier seaplane to Guam, where they`d be developed, checked by censors and radioed stateside by CincPac`s high-power transmitters. He wasn`t sure of what he`d made at the top. A day or so later the Association Press radioed congratulations.

PAGE H2173
THE ADVANCE

Casualties mounted as the carnage erupted into new fury as the 4th Division on the eastern front, 3rd Division in the center and 5th Division on the west hammered ahead with H 2174 tanks, flame throwers, heavy artillery and offshore mortar and rocket boats. Each yard was heartbreak.
By Day 14, the battle line was at Day Two`s objective. PAGE H2173 That day, crippled over Tokyo, the B-29 Dinah Might, was the first Superfort bomber to land on Iwo Jima while trying to return to Guam. With the short, shell-shocked runway under sporadic fire, the 65-ton bomber flopped down for a wild but safe landing.
A Doberman pinscher war dog led his handler`s patrol to a huge cave on the eastern coast where scores of Japanese had lain dead for days in an overpowering stench. Seven Japanese came out of a catacomb and surrendered.

Day 24, March 14 at 9:30 a.m., as CincPac ordered, there was a short ceremony near the base of Suribachi. Gen. Smith`s personnel officer, Col. David Stafford, read a proclamation issued by Adm. Chester Nimitz from headquarters on Guam that officially claimed victory and proclaimed Iwo Jima a U.S. territory. A bugler sounded colors, our flag was hoisted, and a color guard, Adm. Richmond K. Turner and Gen. Smith joined each division commander - Maj. Gens. Graves B. Erskine, Clifton B. Cates and Keller E. Rockey of the 3rd, 4th and 5th divisions, respectively - in salutes.

PAGE H2173 Dedications of three separate cemeteries followed. Bill Ross, Marine correspondent wrote that as Rockey spoke at the 5th`s cemetery, a bulldozer dug more burial trenches for poncho-shrouded Marines laid out in long lines awaiting burial and that a jeep drove up with several more bodies.
Gen. Erskine spoke at the 3rd`s cemetery. `Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was. What was in doubt was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery . . . let the world count our crosses, over and over . . . let us do away with ranks and ratings and designations . . . old timers . . . replacements - here lie only Marines.`
(In the mid-1950s the bodies of all Marines buried on Iwo Jima were exhumed and returned to American soil.) PAGE H2173 Day 35, March 25, remnants of regiments 26, 27 and 28 wearily and warily slogged into Bloody Gorge on the northwest tip of Iwo Jima. There was no resistance: There were no more Japanese.

Official figures are testimony to the valor of Americans who served in the Iwo Jima battle. Total casualties 28,686. Of the 6,821 dead or missing, 5,931 were Marines, 195 were Navy corpsmen attached to Marine units. Of the 27 Medals of Honor awarded to Marines and corpsmen for valor at Iwo, more than half were awarded posthumously.
An estimate of Japanese killed: 20,000. Just 1,083 were taken prisoner - many from the Korean labor battalion. PAGE H2173 On March 14, Adm. Nimitz issued a press release that ended with `Among the Americans who served at Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.`

The same day, Gen. Cates, dedicating his 4th Division`s cemetery, said, `No words of mine can express the homage due these fallen heroes. But I can assure you, and also their loved ones, that we will carry their banner forward.`

PAGE H2174
(FROM THE NAVY TIMES, FEBRUARY 27, 1995)
IF IT HAD TO BE DONE ALL OVER AGAIN - FUTURE MARINES WOULD TAKE IWO
IN ANOTHER WAY
(BY CHRIS LAWSON)
Washington. - If the Marines were tasked with taking Iwo Jima island tomorrow, chances are the assault would look pretty much the same as 50 years ago. It would be a massive amphibious landing.
PAGE H2174 But in 2010, if all goes as planned, the Corps will have the tools in hand to tackle the mission in an entirely new way. From the V-22 Osprey troop carrier to the high-speed advanced amphibious assault vehicle the Corps will be generations ahead of the technology available both in 1945 and today. Indeed, its arsenal might even include robot-controlled vehicles.

While today`s Marines are highly skilled at fighting in the desert and other open terrain with fast-moving tanks and light armored vehicles - as well as fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft not available in 1945 - experts say modern Marines would face many of the same difficulties the 75,000 others did when they came ashore Feb. 19, 1945, and faced down a well-dug-in enemy force of 20,000 Japanese defenders.

TOUGH ROW TO HOE PAGE H2174 Some examples:
The current amphibious tractor travels only 5 mph, a mere 2 mph advantage over World War II models.
Helicopters would be rendered ineffective because nearly every square inch of the small island would be covered with defensive fire.
PAGE H2174 Troop mobility would not be significantly improved, since most of today`s radios and other equipment are the same size and weight as they were in Vietnam.
Fancy technology, like global positioning systems, would not have much value on an island with a total area of just eight square miles.
But today`s Marines would have one distinct advantage. They would likely fight at night. `We could fight in the dark pretty well, but to take a place like Iwo, we`d do it pretty much the same way,` said Col. Gary Anderson, the director of the Corps` Experimental Unit, a futuristic warfighting think tank at Quantico, Va.

PAGE H2174 `It would probably still take individual Marines to root the enemy out. I don`t think that today we have got the capability to force them up out of their (fighting) holes.`

A DIFFERENT FUTURE
But in 2010, if the Marines get the weapons platforms they`re currently vying for and take advantage of burgeoning commercial technologies, bloody Iwo might not be so bloody.

PAGE H2174 The best part: America might not even have to take such an island - just simply go around it. But if they did need to seize Iwo, future Marines would have several distinct advantages. For starters, the attack could come from over-the-horizon at breakneck speeds and top maneuverability. The V-22 Osprey people mover could help ferry Marines inland to high ground and Iwo airstrips, instead of simply dropping them at the soggy, ash-sand beaches and forcing Marines to slog their way ashore.

PAGE H2174 The AAAV could maneuver around any mines in the off-shore waters, and roar from ship to shore at speeds of more than 30 mph, thereby reducing their vulnerability to enemy fire.
Thank again to the legs and speed of the V-22, the logistics trains would likely be based at sea - not on the beach, where in World War II it fell victim to a continuous bombardment by enemy forces.
The Marines would also have the capability to land infestation teams on the critical high ground and take that advantage away from the enemy. Marines would likely land atop Mount Suribachi and fight their way down to the bottom, instead of working their way up under deadly attack.
PAGE H2174
ROBOTS TOO
Anderson said robotic technology could have a dramatic effect as well, and possible save the lives of thousands of Marines. Remote-controlled AAAVs, for example, could roar ashore and act as a magnet for enemy fire. Sophisticated sensing systems could then acquire the targets.

`You shoot at us, you die,` Anderson said. `Every time they fire, they would become a target.`
PAGE H2174 The best part: advanced Marine weaponry will likely allow shooters to engage their targets from the line of sight.
`If you can get eyes on target, you can kill them,` Anderson said. `You wouldn`t do away totally with rifle-to-rifle and hand-to-hand combat, but you`d cut it way down. In 1945, 85 percent of the fighting was done that way. We think we could get that down to 20 percent.`

SOFTENING THE TARGET
PAGE H2174 The Marines, Navy and Air Force would also pound the daylights out of the islands with bomb after sophisticated bomb in an effort to prep the battlefield for maximum effectiveness.

Here again, robots could play a vital role. But just how vital will be determined as much by culture as technology.
`Would you see a robot platoon raise the flag on Mount Suribachi? I don`t think so,` Anderson said with a laugh. `But one of the raisers might be a robot.`

PAGE H2174

OUTLINE 1. TIME: 2310 H2168

MORE ON IWO JIMA H2168

2. TIME: 2320 H2169

3. TIME: 2330 H2170

4. TIME: 2340 H2171

5. TIME: 1150 H2172

6. TIME: 0000 H2173

7. (FROM THE NAVY TIMES, FEBRUARY 27, 1995) H2173

IWO JIMA: VALOR, DEATH AND A RAISED FLAG H2173

(BY GENE RIDER) H2173

8. A `TOPPING-OUT` PARTY H2173

9. THE ADVANCE H2173

10. (FROM THE NAVY TIMES, FEBRUARY 27, 1995) H2174

IF IT HAD TO BE DONE ALL OVER AGAIN - FUTURE
MARINES WOULD TAKE IWO IN ANOTHER WAY H2174
(BY CHRIS LAWSON) H2174

11. TOUGH ROW TO HOE H2174

12. A DIFFERENT FUTURE H2174

13. ROBOTS TOO H2174

14. SOFTENING THE TARGET H2174


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Warren S. Apel warren@esquilax.com