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« on: July 09, 2015, 06:42:52 PM » |
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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 7-8-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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A 'Gay Parody' of Marine Sacrifice
The Desecration of the USMC War Memorial
By Mark Alexander
Jul. 8, 2015
“Every thing useful and beneficial to man, seems to be connected with obedience to the laws of his nature, the inclinations, the duties, and the happiness of individuals, resolve themselves into customs and habits, favourable, in the highest degree, to society. In no case is this more apparent, than in the customs of nations respecting marriage.” –Samuel Williams (1794)
“By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the Americans serving on Iwo island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.” —Admiral Chester Nimitz
“Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years.” —Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal to General Holland Smith on the Iwo beach below
Last week, I visited the Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia.
Among a plethora of remarkable artifacts from Marine operations dating back to the Corps' founding1 on 10 November 1775 is the World War II American flag2 that was raised above Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi 70 years ago. I was amazed by this particular display, as I did not know the Iwo flag, and the smaller one that preceded it, had been recovered and archived.
It was a privilege to stand before that American flag3 with my son, who had just graduated from Officer Candidates School at MCB Quantico — the “Crossroads of the Marine Corps.” We didn’t say much. Instead, we quietly contemplated the price of Liberty won under that Star-Spangled Banner. It seemed a fitting way to prepare for an Independence Day4 celebration.
While the sacrifices represented within that hallowed museum were overwhelming, we were both humbled and awestruck by the flag exhibit because its docent narrator was an 89-year-old veteran of the Iwo Jima assault, Private First Class Frank Matthews, 2d Battalion, 24th Regiment, 4th Division, USMC.
The Marine invasion of Iwo Jima, known as “Operation Detachment,” began on February 19, 1945, and continued through March 27. Taking Iwo Jima, the first of the Japanese home islands, was critical to our success in the Pacific, as it would eliminate enemy airfields there and provide the U.S. with airfields for cover during the planned invasion of Japan.
That tiny volcanic island, about one-third the size of Manhattan, was heavily fortified by a nation that well knew its strategic significance. Iwo Jima, whose name means “Sulfur Island,” contained approximately 18,000 warriors of the Imperial Japanese Army, who built a vast network of bunkers, concealed artillery and a 12-mile network of cave tunnels. Our invading force comprised 70,000 Marines. The 36-day assault resulted in more than 20,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead. Nearly every Japanese fighter was killed. Only 216 were taken prisoner.
Think about those numbers for a moment.
Iwo Jima marked the beginning of the end of the Pacific War, which culminated in the battle of Okinawa (which lasted 82 days and resulted in more than 10,000 dead) and the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Our narrator, then just 18 years old, spent 28 days in combat on Iwo, and his mission was, as he states, “to kill Japanese.” He landed on Iwo the second day of battle and fought his way north. “That was the only time in my life I’ve ever been involved in hand-to-hand combat. I was a skinny kid from North Carolina.”
He recounted the brutal beach landings5 — more than 2,400 Marines died on the first day alone.
He told the story behind a large exhibit photo of himself entitled “Flame Warfare,” in which he is using an M2 flamethrower6. He notes that on the tenth day of the battle his gunnery sergeant instructed him to pick up a flamethrower from a fellow Marine who had just been killed by a sniper. “I was more afraid of that gunny than I was of the Japanese, so I put it on,” said Frank. “I hated the thing. It weighed 83 pounds. I weighed about 150.”
Asked by a young person if he was afraid, Frank responded, “I was afraid alright, but I was afraid I was going to do something stupid. I didn’t have time to be afraid of anything else.”
He was pleased to point out something that few people know — among the major ships at Iwo, the Nevada, the Tennessee and the West Virginia, all three had been sunk at Pearl Harbor. Each was re-floated, refitted and put back into action. The Nevada even went to the Atlantic for the Normandy invasion before returning to the Pacific for the Iwo Jima invasion. |
