[Rhodes22-list] Different Era - Longer Attention Spans

[budconnor at earthlink.net]

Brad,
  my dad served on Iwo, he said there was a lot of cheering in the fox holes
when those young marines looked up through the smoke and saw our flag on 
top of Mt. Suribachi.

-Bud



-----Original Message-----
>From: Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
>Sent: Aug 21, 2006 11:21 AM
>To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Different Era - Longer Attention Spans
>
>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.