[Rhodes22-list] Different Era - Longer Attention Spans

[Brad Haslett]

For a great read on this story read " *Flags of Our
Fathers*<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553589083/sr=8-2/qid=1156173582/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-7384433-4314547?ie=UTF8>by
James Bradley and Ron Powers."

Brad

Photographer Joe Rosenthal died yesterday of natural causes at age 94.
Rosenthal is the man who took the immortal photograph of the Marines
planting the flag on Mount Suribarchi, Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945,
following the costliest fight in Marine Corps history. The photograph
depicts Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley, Harlon Block, Michael
Strank, and Rene Gagnon. The *AP
obituary*<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/15323361.htm>by
Justin Norton tells the story:

Ten years after the flag-raising, Rosenthal wrote that he almost didn't go
up to the summit when he learned a flag had already been raised. He decided
to [go] up anyway, and found servicemen preparing to put up the second,
larger flag.

"Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung
my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when
you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great
shot. You don't know."

"Millions of Americans saw this picture five or six days before I did, and
when I first heard about it, I had no idea what picture was meant."

He recalled that days later, when a colleague congratulated him on the
picture, he thought he meant another, posed shot he had taken later that
day, of Marines waving and cheering at the base of the flag.

He added that if he had posed the flag-raising picture, as some skeptics
have suggested over the years, "I would, of course, have ruined it" by
choosing fewer men and making sure their faces could be seen.

Reader William Katz comments:

A death like this requires some contemplation. Joe Rosenthal took the most
famous picture of World War II - the flagraising on Iwo Jima. If ever a
death symbolized the fading of an era, it's this one.

It's poignant that Rosenthal's passing comes at a time when the integrity of
photojournalism is being questioned as never before. Rosenthal himself, as
the story reports, lived with whispers that he'd posed the flagraising.

Of course, he hadn't. As he commented, if he'd posed the picture, he
would've ruined it. And a film of the moment proves the photo's
authenticity.

Joe Rosenthal, as his daughter says in the story, was "a good and honest
man." His word was enough to quiet all but the most incorrigible doubters.
We must ask, given some recent events, whether there are many people in
mainstream media whose word we would accept without question. I think there
are, but their voices need to be heard.

RIP.

UPDATE: Former Marine Corporal (1967-79) Jim Burke writes to clarify the
timeline with regard to the photo:

The photo was taken on the third day of battle not at the conclusion of the
month long fight. Also, three of the six "raisers" of the second flag died
on that sulphurious speck in the ocean.

Jim signs off: "Semper Fidelis." Lt. Col. Kim Scott LaBrie of the Nevada
Army National Guard writes to the same effect:

Properly speaking, the flagraising didn't take place following the costliest
fight in Marine Corps history. The greater part of the cost was to be paid
in the weeks following this event. It was discharged as the Marines and
assigned Navy medical personnel moved northward across the airfields and
into the mass of successive Japanese defensive positions which stretched to
the northeast tip of the island. Perhaps better to say that this image
symbolizes the spirit and sacrifice which drove America to achieve success
in the face of such horrible odds.

Reader Karen Schmautz writes from California:

As soon as I saw that picture I was reminded of the "posed picture" story
that my family and I were told when we were on a guided tour in Washington,
D.C. several years ago. When we visited the statue, the DC guide told us
that, although the picture was famous, it was only a posed picture. She told
us that the flag had already been raised before Rosenthal arrived on the
scene, so he made them take it down and raise it up again in order to get
the shot. I remember thinking it was such a shame that photographers did
that kind of thing in order to elicit certain kinds of emotions from the
viewers of the photograph.

I'm so glad that you posted the story and the quotes from the photographer
about the picture.

It is a shame that paid guides pass along rumors and half-truths. It makes
me wonder about what else I "learned" on our trip to DC that wasn't exactly
true.
-------------- next part --------------
Name: iwojima2.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 240783 bytes Desc: not available
Url: http://www.rhodes22.org/pipermail/rhodes22-list/attch/200608/21/iwojima2.jpeg