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The Unmanned Writer |
https://www.nationalww2museum....pics/battle-iwo-jima
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. "If dogs don't go to Heaven, I want to go where they go" Will Rogers The definition of the words we used, carry a meaning of their own... | ||
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| As Extraordinary as Everyone Else  |
Thank you for this reminder. My step Dad was in the marines and fought in Iwo Jima. He never talked about it… ------------------ Eddie Our Founding Fathers were men who understood that the right thing is not necessarily the written thing. -kkina | |||
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Step by step walk the thousand mile road |
The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast had two great episodes on the battle of Iwo Jima. Nice is overrated "It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government." Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018 | |||
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Resident Undertaker |
My uncle was there also. I Company, 23rd Regiment, 4th Marines. Wounded on the 6th night chucking grenades back and forth with the Japanese. A friend of mine lost a cousin there. John The key to enforcement is to punish the violator, not an inanimate object. The punishment of inanimate objects for the commission of a crime or carelessness is an affront to stupidity. | |||
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| Freethinker |
Why do you think that was? That’s a comment I very often see when a veteran’s wartime service is mentioned, and I always wonder what the reason was. I know why I have never talked much about my own career, and I have my own ideas about the reason(s) other veterans don’t, but I am curious about others’ perceptions. ► 6.0/94.0 To operate serious weapons in a serious manner. | |||
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| SF Jake |
Dad was Navy Corpsman USS Frederick Funston, troop transport….they would deploy the marines via landing craft and after unloaded they served as a hospital ship for our casualties. He was at Iwo Jima invasion among others. He didn’t talk a lot about his war time service but once in a while he would tell stories to family. ________________________ Those who trade liberty for security have neither | |||
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| As Extraordinary as Everyone Else |
From talking to his adult children it appears he was in some hellish hand to hand combat. When he got out he went to Yale Medical School and became a very successful surgeon… My FIL also saw some brutal combat in WW2. He spent his adult years after that working his tail off and was also successful. When he was forced to retire due to having 4 heart attacks his demons returned and he spent the last years of his life trying to come to terms with what he did back then. In fact, on his dying bed he confided in me telling me that God was going to send him to Hell for what he did then… While I certainly respect those who have fought in battles since WW2 I think many of those veterans fought the hardest battles since either WW1 or the Civil War.. (No disrespect to any other veterans ment). ------------------ Eddie Our Founding Fathers were men who understood that the right thing is not necessarily the written thing. -kkina | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
I was at a military museum this past weekend for US Army Air Forces General Carl Spaatz who was born and lived in the town we live in and they mentioned on the guided tour that there were actually TWO flags raised at Iwo Jima which I never really knew: The Story Behind the Two Flag Raisings at the Battle of Iwo Jima | |||
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| I have not yet begun to procrastinate |
My uncle was wounded there. Shot in the jaw and somehow avoided getting his head blown off. Parts of his hip were used to reconstruct the jaw. -------- After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box. | |||
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Member |
My Father was 18 yrs old when he charged those beaches, and had re-occurring nightmares by what my Mom told me. He never said a single word to me about it. I was born in 1956, Seems those years growing up following WWII were a silent reminder of all the horrors of reality and people were decent. ________,_____________________________ Guns don't kill people - Alec Baldwin kills people. He's never been a straight shooter. | |||
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Member |
Two reasons: 1) Talking about it means reliving it, and they don't want to do that. 2) Even if they did talk about it, you wouldn't really understand it because you didn't live it. Sometimes vets who saw real sustained combat will open up to other combat vets, because they understand what it was like. ---------------------------------- "These things you say we will have, we already have." "That's true. I ain't promising you nothing extra." | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven! |
None of the guys from that generation ever talked about it, I think stoicism and keeping your mouth shut was much more a thing back then and they saw horrors that they didn't want to have to re-live. My Dad's Uncle Ray who became his de facto father after his own father died when he was 12 had served with the Marines in the Pacific in WWII and never wanted to talk about it. My Dad told me years later that Uncle Ray told him a little about fighting the "Japs" and seeing men get bayoneted open by them. Then I found out years later that Ray's brother Leo who lived next door to him was an Army medic in Europe in WWII and they found a Silver Star in his possessions after he died. Never talked about it. | |||
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| Member |
One of my dad's maternal cousins was killed while landing at Iwo Jima. Kind of hard for the family, because only a couple of months earlier they had learned that one of my dad's maternal uncles was killed in Germany. My dad was just a young school kid back then, but he remembered the deaths. | |||
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Only the strong survive |
I met a person at a gun show that fought there. We become good friends and I have picture frames made from wormy chestnut that he made from logs on his property in Highland County. The History Channel had an article today: How US Marines Won the Battle of Iwo Jima A look back at one of the most hard-fought battles of World War II. https://api.wsj.net/api/kaavio...idth=1045&mocktick=1 41 | |||
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| Green grass and high tides  |
I knew it was late in the war. Am reminded just how late. Those men are true hero's. "Practice like you want to play in the game" | |||
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| Member |
Some of the worst fighting happened near the end of the war, which I firmly believe is why Truman authorized use of the Atomic Bombs on Japan. Casualties were massive, and estimates of the cost of an invasion of Japan ran upwards of ONE MILLION U.S. casualties. WWII is still personal for me. Although nobody on either side of my family was injured or killed, all of them served. The father of my closest friend used Iwo on several occasions after getting his B-29 shot up over Japan. My future father in law was on a troop ship headed to Japan for the final invasion when the Japs surrendered. My father was in Patton's 3rd Army and participated in a non-combat role in the rescue of McAuliffe and the 101st Airborne. Just before the pandemic, I met a man wearing an Airborne cap who was standing within earshot of McAuliffe when he gave his one-word reply to the German demand to surrender: "NUTS!" -------------------------- Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- H L Mencken I always prefer reality when I can figure out what it is. -- JALLEN 10/18/18 | |||
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Member |
The father of a good friend was in the Navy and his ship transported wounded soldiers from Iwo Jima to hospital ships. Didn't talk about what he saw but said "The happiest day of my life was when the atomic bomb was dropped." U.S. Army 11F4P Vietnam 69-70 NRA Life Member | |||
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Happily Retired |
Yeah, the WW2 vets were a different breed altogether. My dad was a deck officer aboard a Battleship (the name of which I have forgotten now) in the Pacific during the middle part of the war. He ended up after a couple of years stationed in Pearl when the war was finally over. He would answer questions that I asked over the years but never talked about anything in any detail. We were best friends all through my adulthood, hunting, fishing, camping, all those countless hours sitting around a fire at night and he just never, ever talked about it. I remember one time I was talking to my mother about it and asked her if he ever confided in her about that time and she said nope, never. I replied that it seemed a little strange. She looked at me and said..."honey, just let it be." Good advice. .....never marry a woman who is mean to your waitress. | |||
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| The Main Thing Is Not To Get Excited  |
I really find this interesting; how so many stores are the same story. Everyone in my family served but only one on Iwo. Somewhere around 30 years later I asked my uncle, wounded on Iwo, how long he was on the island. My debonair (or as debonair as you can be in New Mexico, Hisa response: "How the fuck do I know. I got off the boat and woke up about a week later on a hospital ship." It's like my navy friends say; "Fuckin' Marines." _______________________ | |||
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Member |
My Grandfather (RIP) was an aviation mechanic in the AAF on Iwo Jima. Thank you for the reminder. What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone | |||
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