BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

(Thom Stewart) wrote in message ...
I Remembered. I went sailing today. Actually went yesterday evening and
came back today.

Cold!! Thank's goodness for the Pilothouse. Temp 41 Degrees. Wind damn
light. About 3 knots.

Doug, Thought a lot about you on the way back. BBQ'd Ribs on the way
back on the Heat Pal. Beautiful aroma sailing back. I was wondering if
you ever tried the Recipe?

So; "LET'S REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR!" And "DRINK TO THAT!"

Ole Thom

Hey Ol Thom,

I thought this was worth re-posting here for some of people here
might understand what our vets did for them. It's from a shipmate of
mine named Joe Dunlap. And is on the web-site usssamuelgompers.org

Here is what Joe wrote:

Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade
class
from Clinton, WI, where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly
enjoy
visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special
memories
back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima Memorial.
This
memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of
the
most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers
raising
the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo
Jima,
Japan, during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and
headed
towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
statue,
and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?"

I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a cheesehead, too!
Come
gather around, Cheeseheads, and I will tell you a story."

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the
memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night
to his
dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw
the
buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his
permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to
tour
the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington,D.C., but
it is
quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are
his
words that night.)

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on
that
statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is
#5 on
the New York Times Be st Seller list right now. It is the story of the
six
boys you see behind me.

"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the
ground is
Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in
the
Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They
were off
to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn
out
to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in
his
hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are
generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of
war.
You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18,
and 19
years old.

(He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon
from
New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo
was
taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a
photograph
... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for
protection
because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of
Iwo
Jima. Boys. Not old men.

"The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike
Strank.
Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him
the "old
man" because he was so old.. He was already 24. When Mike would
motivate his
boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or
'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys.
Instead
he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your
mothers.'

"The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian
from
Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House
with
my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters,
'How
can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me
and
only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school,
250 of
you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together.
Then all
250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off
alive.
That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes
died dead
drunk, face down at the age of 32 ... ten years after this picture was
taken.

"The next guy, going a round the statue, is Franklin Sousley from
Hilltop,
Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70,
told
me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop
General
Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get
down.
Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.' Yes, he
was a
fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19.
When
the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the
Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother's
farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the
morning.
The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

"The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until
1994,
but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers,
or
the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say,
'No,
I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there
is no
phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad
never
fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at
the
table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he
was
out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press.

"You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these
guys
are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew
better.
He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo
Jima he
probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo
Jima,
they writhed and screamed in pain.

"When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad
was a
hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said,
'I
want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys
who did
not come back. Did NOT come back.'

"So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo
Jima, and
three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo
Jima in
the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is
giving out,
so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a
flag
sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the
heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not
a
hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for
us to
live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from
the
revolutionary War to the Gulf War and all the wars in-between that
sacrifice
was made for our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray
for
those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP and thank God
for
being alive at someone else's sacrifice. God Bless.

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up and put the feet on the
ground, it's
going to be a great day.