God Bless These Men........

[Phantom Blooper]

U.S. FLAG ON IWO JIMA:
February 23, 1945

During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island's highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag. Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with them and recorded the event. American soldiers fighting for control of Suribachi's slopes cheered the raising of the flag, and several hours later more Marines headed up to the crest with a larger flag. Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, met them along the way and recorded the raising of the second flag along with a Marine still photographer and a motion-picture cameraman.
Rosenthal took three photographs atop Suribachi. The first, which showed five Marines and one Navy corpsman struggling to hoist the heavy flag pole, became the most reproduced photograph in history and won him a Pulitzer Prize. The accompanying motion-picture footage attests to the fact that the picture was not posed. Of the other two photos, the second was similar to the first but less affecting, and the third was a group picture of 18 soldiers smiling and waving for the camera. Many of these men, including three of the six soldiers seen raising the flag in the famous Rosenthal photo, were killed before the conclusion of the Battle for Iwo Jima in late March.

In early 1945, U.S. military command sought to gain control of the island of Iwo Jima in advance of the projected aerial campaign against the Japanese home islands. Iwo Jima, a tiny volcanic island located in the Pacific about 700 miles southeast of Japan, was to be a base for fighter aircraft and an emergency-landing site for bombers. On February 19, 1945, after three days of heavy naval and aerial bombardment, the first wave of U.S. Marines stormed onto Iwo Jima's inhospitable shores.

The Japanese garrison on the island numbered 22,000 heavily entrenched men. Their commander, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had been expecting an Allied invasion for months and used the time wisely to construct an intricate and deadly system of underground tunnels, fortifications, and artillery that withstood the initial Allied bombardment. By the evening of the first day, despite incessant mortar fire, 30,000 U.S. Marines commanded by General Holland Smith managed to establish a solid beachhead.

During the next few days, the Marines advanced inch by inch under heavy fire from Japanese artillery and suffered suicidal charges from the Japanese infantry. Many of the Japanese defenders were never seen and remained underground manning artillery until they were blown apart by a grenade or rocket, or incinerated by a flame thrower.

While Japanese kamikaze flyers slammed into the Allied naval fleet around Iwo Jima, the Marines on the island continued their bloody advance across the island, responding to Kuribayashi's lethal defenses with remarkable endurance. On February 23, the crest of 550-foot Mount Suribachi was taken, and the next day the slopes of the extinct volcano were secured.

By March 3, U.S. forces controlled all three airfields on the island, and on March 26 the last Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima were wiped out. Only 200 of the original 22,000 Japanese defenders were captured alive. More than 6,000 Americans died taking Iwo Jima, and some 17,000 were wounded.

[thedrifter]

Hand Salute

[thedrifter]

'Flags of Our Fathers' a Tale of Iwo Jima

Hollywood superstar Clint Eastwood wants to tell both sides of one WW2's most infamous battles

David McNeill (internews)

In 2005, as Japan was gearing up for a summer of painful World War II anniversaries Yo****aka Shindo received an unusual phone call. Hollywood superstar Clint Eastwood was planning to visit Tokyo in April and would very much like to meet the Japanese Diet member to discuss a project he was working on. Was he available? "Of course I said yes," says Councilor Shindo.

The project was a movie about Iwo Jima, a speck of volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean about 700 miles south of Tokyo that was the site of one of warfare's most brutal battles. Shaped like a teardrop, the 8-sq-mile island -- a third the size of Manhattan -- was blasted almost flat, becoming what one veteran called a "sulphurous, crater-filled hellhole" in six weeks of intense fighting in February and March 1945.

When the fighting stopped, 7,000 Allies were dead and just 200 of the 21,800 Japanese troops defending the island had been taken alive. The black sands of Iwo Jima passed into military legend, immortalised in a famous photograph by Joe Rosenthal showing a group of battered, exhausted Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. The battle remains, even after 60 years of blood-soaked history in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the U.S. Marines' deadliest: nearly one third of all Marines killed in World War 2 died on the island.

Like many Japanese, Shindo wondered what the two-time Oscar-wining director would make of this story. The gung-ho star of prime slabs of Americana such as "Heartbreak Ridge" and "Dirty Harry," Eastwood is famously right-wing; a longstanding Republican who supported presidents Richard Nixon and Roland Reagan. Wouldn't Eastwood's effort -- tentatively titled "Lamps Before the Wind" -- be a replay of the infamous "Sands of Iwo Jima," staring another Hollywood tough guy, John Wayne?

"Sands," made just four years after the soldiers retuned home was as shrill and jingoistic as a piece of Stalinist propaganda and became a recruiting poster for a generation of Marines, inspiring, among others, Ron Kovic, the paraplegic Vietnam veteran whose story was dramatized in "Born on the Fourth of July." With its big-hearted U.S. grunts pitted against fanatical, Banzai-screaming 'Nips' and 'Japs,' the movie has few fans in Japan, where many old soldiers know that John Wayne never served a day in the armed forces.

When he met Eastwood, however, Shindo was pleasantly surprised. "He told me he didn't want to make a movie simply about war, but about families and the human heart," says the lawmaker, who believes Western movies about wartime Japan focus too much on what the Japanese call gyokusai, meaning 'to die an honorable death.' "He wants to tell the story from both sides." Shindo has a personal stake in the project: his grandfather General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, was handpicked by Emperor Hirohito to lead the defense of Iwo Jima.

Eastwood's Tokyo trip, during which he flew to Iwo Jima and met survivors and politicians including Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, confirms reports that the ageing, increasingly introspective star had something of an epiphany while working on a long-cherished project to turn the bestselling book "Flags of Our Fathers," by James Bradley and Ron Powers, into a movie.

The film -- Eastwood's 26th as director -- which finishes shooting this month, tells the story of the young Marines in the iconic Rosenthal photo. Three never got off the island alive, while the rest became reluctant heroes, ferried from city to city to whip up morale and flog war bonds before disappearing into postwar obscurity.

Eastwood no doubt hopes that the tragic tale of the rise and fall of ordinary American heroes used then discarded by forces beyond their control, will resonate with contemporary U.S. audiences increasingly weary of the war in Iraq. But somewhere during filming he realized he was only telling half the story and decided, remarkably, to make a second film. "Sometimes you have a premonition... and just have to trust your gut," he told Time magazine.

Those associated with the project say he developed an almost 'obsessive' interest in the battle, and particularly in General Kuribayashi, a fanatically disciplined and loyal Imperial warrior who was told to defend the island at all costs to give the mainland time to prepare for the expected U.S. invasion. It was a mission all knew was doomed and soon after Iwo Jima fell the U.S. began the carpet bombing of Japanese cities.

"We brought supplies to the island before the fighting began and we gave the soldiers left behind all we had, including personal possessions," says Koji Kitahara, who was a 23-year-old Japanese Navy recruit at the time. "We knew they weren't coming back." Kuribayashi drove his men relentlessly, digging more than 11 miles of tunnels in scorching heat and orchestrating a murderous defensive campaign before apparently committing ritual suicide. His body has never been found.

The self-willed Japanese general, imbued with the spirit of the quasi-religious Bushido cult, is a standard trope of countless Japanese war movies, as much a cliche as the bug-eyed scarf-wearing Arabs that populate U.S. movies about the Middle East, but Shindo says he hopes the movie will show another, less well-known side to his grandfather.

"I'd like people to see that he was full of love for his family and children. Japanese soldiers like him were not fighting just to die honorably. The reason they fought to the last man was to delay the air raids on their families and the Japanese people. In doesn't matter if the soldiers were from America or Japan, they fought to protect their families."

Eastwood is clearly aiming for authenticity. He has hired Japanese-American writer Iris Yama****a to write the script and reportedly intends to hire some of the cream of Japanese acting. Like all American filmmakers today, he has a monetary interest in getting Japan right: the country is the world's second-biggest market for Hollywood movies, one reason why the barbaric, buck-toothed stereotype of yore has disappeared from movies like "Pearl Harbor," which showed clean-cut Japanese pilots warning American children to flee the bombing.

But the star got a taste of potential problems with the project when he met Governor Ishihara, under whose jurisdiction the island falls. In between jokes about the perils of being mayor (Eastwood was once mayor of Carmel in California) Ishihara said that Iwo Jima is a 'sacred place' for the Japanese and pointedly said he wanted "national sentiments to be respected." Ishihara's famously anti-American politics were formed during the war when he remembers being strafed "for fun" by U.S. planes "with pictures of naked women and Mickey Mouse painted on the fuselage."

"I couldn't believe my eyes! I was scared to death, and angry but I was also thinking what a place America must be, what a culture, and how different from Japan. Then I heard other planes but no machine guns this time; they were Zeros in pursuit, and their insignia was the Japanese flag. I felt like reaching up to embrace that rising sun."

Sentiments like that are rare in Japan, but many Japanese are ambiguous about their postwar relationship with the U.S., which bombed most of the country's major cities to rubble before incinerating Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Memorials to Iwo Jima are dotted all over the country, including one on Mt. Takao in Western Tokyo officially opened by current Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi when he was health minister. Under the two political leaders, Japan has grown less inhibited about its wartime past and increasingly willing to commemorate its millions of dead soldiers.

After six decades of negative portrayals of the Imperial Army, nationalists like Ishihara and Shindo want Eastwood to show that Japanese troops were no better or worse than their U.S. counterparts. "The idea that the Japanese side was undisciplined and barbaric and the U.S. civilized is a typical misunderstanding," says Shindo. But even those who do accept that the Imperial Army committed brutal crimes during its brief reign in Asia wonder whether the movie will show how the battle looked from the Japanese side.

"We were disciplined and the U.S. side was careless" says Satoru Omagari, a former pilot, now 88, who was one of a handful of men to escape the island alive and says the battle for Iwo Jima was very different to how it has been portrayed. He calls the battle, "the most terrifying experience of my life."

"We were said to have been the ones fighting dirty, but the Americans surrounded us and for two or three days carpeted the island with shells, and we did not retaliate. When they landed they expected it to be easy but we hid and waited before attacking, which is so why so many of them died. It was the only place in World War 2 where they suffered so many casualties, and I think that is why we have earned this reputation of being so barbaric."

U.S. veterans confirm that the Japanese surprised them. "They damned near cleaned our clock," says John Rich, one of the first Marines on the island. "They were a formidable enemy. I threw myself into a bomb crater and there were two marines there and realized I was the only one alive. It was an incredibly bitter battle, so I'd like Eastwood to do something that would bring us together."

Some Japanese veterans also question the authenticity of the Rosenthal photo, which is long rumored to have been staged. By the time he got to Suribachi four days after D-Day, the photographer was told the flag had already been planted on the summit. The Marines and Rosenthal, for reasons forever clouded in mystery, decided to restage the event using a larger flag. Rosenthal clicked the most famous image of the war, but the kinetic spontaneity that made the shot such a potent and mythological propaganda weapon has always been in doubt.

"The Marines certainly raised the flag, but I don't think the act was as brave as has been portrayed," says Omagari. "Any army will plant their flag, and Mt. Suribachi was about the only place they could have done it."

Eastwood seems to have sensed the passions the battle for Iwo Jima arouses: in Tokyo he promised to respect Ishihara's wishes and avoid hurting Japanese feelings, saying he saw the battle as a 'cultural, not a military conflict.' But he will also be under pressure to make a movie that, in part at least, makes his American audience feel proud of their past.
As he casts around for inspiration, he could do worse than read the poetry of U.S. veteran Bill Madden, who lost friends and much of his hearing on Iwo Jima before later writing:

Jim is gone, mortar-blasted
Iwo blasted, evil-blasted;
Just two survive, Al and me.
Then Al is gone

http://image.ohmynews.com/down/images/1/todd_275967_1[424886].jpg

Scene from "Flags of Our Fathers"
©2006 WarnerBros

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Posted on Thu, Feb. 23, 2006
Survivor of Iwo Jima battle witnessed historic flag raising
By CHUCK CRUMBO
Staff Writer

As Marine Pfc. Bob Hughes sprinted toward the battalion command post, he spotted the U.S. flag rising atop Mount Suribachi.

He stopped and saluted.

A bullet from a Japanese sniper’s rifle zipped between his right hand and ear, cutting the chin strap of Hughes’ helmet.

Hughes hit the deck and stayed down a couple of minutes. “I was out in the open all by myself. There wasn’t a soul within 50 yards of me.”

He got up and continued to the command post as the Battle for Iwo Jima raged on. There was no time to reflect on the scene, 61 years ago today, that would become a symbol of values embodied by the Marine Corps.

“We had to get down to business again,” said Hughes, who served with Company G, 2nd Battalion, 25th Regiment of the 4th Marine Division.

But that moment on Mount Suribachi, about a mile from where Hughes stood, was captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Rosenthal’s picture of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the flag raised the spirits of a war-weary country.

The Marines’ performance at Iwo Jima, a strategic island in the Pacific Ocean about 650 miles from Japan, is still honored.

Hughes, an 82-year-old retiree living in Columbia, recalls his feelings when he saw the flag raised in that famous battle. “It meant we were making progress in achieving our goal,” he said.

But securing the 8-square-mile island of black sand and volcanic rock would not be achieved until four weeks later.

U.S. casualties included 6,821 Marines and Navy personnel killed in action. Japan lost all but 1,000 of 21,000 troops who fought out of the three miles of tunnels and more than 800 concrete pillboxes on the island.

For Hughes, the fight on Iwo Jima ended just hours after the flag was raised Feb. 23, 1945.

It was about 10 that night when Hughes and a buddy hunkered down. They had found a fresh mound of soil. On top of the mound was a slight depression.

The mound offered protection from small-arms fire and mortar rounds, Hughes said, but not from above.

Japanese aviators that night battled U.S. Navy ships offshore. A large chunk of anti-aircraft flak fell from the sky and struck both of Hughes’ legs.

He was evacuated and wound up at the Naval hospital in Charleston, where he underwent surgery for his wounds.

Hughes, who grew up in Pennsylvania, received an honorable discharge in October 1945 and opted to make his home in South Carolina.

He married, raised four children and devoted his spare time to the American Legion and Marine Corps League.

On Saturday, he was honored for his service by the League’s Harold “Speedy” Wilson detachment of West Columbia. Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Jim Livingston, a Medal of Honor recipient, presented Hughes with the detachment’s distinguished service award.

Hughes still remembers the feelings that welled inside him the day those five Marines and Navy corpsman raised the flag above Mount Suribachi.

“It was about the biggest thrill you could imagine seeing ‘Old Glory.’”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

36 Days in Hell
The Battle of Iwo Jima
February 19, 1945 - March 25, 1945

The Battle of Iwo Jima cannot be covered in just three or four paragraphs and so there will be a series of posts over the next month dedicated to this most defining battle for the United States Marines.

The raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi is an image that is inspiring and moving, but it cannot have full meaning to anyone who doesn’t understand the depth of the grisly and hellish fighting engaged in by the United States Marines and the Imperial Japanese Army. For the Marines there were two enemies, over 20,000 Japanese lead by the redoubtable General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, and the imposing terrain of the volcanic island. Japanese soldiers faced over 80,000 Marines and sailors, and a total of 28,000 Americans and Japanese would give their lives in the savage fighting during the last winter months of 1945.1

Positioned directly between Saipan and Tokyo, the eight square mile island was of strategic importance to both the Japanese and Americans. Only three hours from Tokyo by the slowest aircraft Iwo Jima was administered as part of Tokyo Prefecture, and considered to be within the Japanese "Inner Vital Defense Zone."2 Iwo’s radar gave the Japanese a two hour advance warning of any strike by the American B-29 long range bombers while the two operational airstrips allowed the Japanese to launch fighters against American bombers.

American control of the island eliminated early warning of bombing raids on Tokyo, provided emergency airfields for crippled aircraft, allowed fighter escorts for bombers through the most dangerous parts of their routes, and would also protect the flank of the impending invasion of Okinawa. One of the final battles of the Pacific Theater of Operations, Iwo Jima was also one of the bloodiest and a defining moment in the history of the United States Marines.

[thedrifter]

CLOSING IN: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima
by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander
U.S. Marine Corps (Ret)

http://www.nps.gov/wapa/indepth/extContent/usmc/pcn-190-003131-00/index.htm

[thedrifter]

Marine veterans mark Iwo Jima anniversary in Pomona
By HEMA EASLEY
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: February 25, 2006)

POMONA — It has been 61 years, but Greg Emery's memory of the landing at Iwo Jima is still vivid.

Emery, now 80, was a nimble 19-year-old when he landed on the island just as the fighting for Mount Suribachi began. His unit, the 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, was among the first to arrive off the Pacific Island.

"We were told at a briefing on the ship that it would be a three-to-four-day operation. We were told to expect very little resistance," said Emery, who was raised in Peekskill and now lives in Boynton Beach, Fla. "But it didn't work out that way."

At the end of the 37-day campaign for Mount Suribachi, more than 6,000 American soldiers, sailors and Marines had been killed. Some 20,000 Japanese defenders also died. Emery suffered shrapnel wounds in the fighting but participated in the entire campaign.

Yesterday, Emery was among 120 men and women gathered at the Platzl Brauhaus in Pomona to mark the 61st anniversary of the landing on Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945. Dressed in the signature red jackets of the Marine Corps League, the veterans toasted the valor of those who fought.

"This is the time to recognize the guys who were there, whether they are here now or not," said George Rath, commandant of the Rockland County Detachment of the Marine Corps League, which sponsored the event.

The ceremony began with the presentation of the colors by members of the Stewart Air National Guard in Newburgh, followed by the national anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance.

A highlight of the event was the presentation of the Elmer Jewell Award to Gene Erickson of Monsey for his work for veterans. The award is named after a Marine who was killed on Iwo Jima.

Erickson was recognized for his efforts to find employment for veterans and for running a program to get prepaid telephone calling cards for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Erickson has so far sent 5,000 calling cards, Rath said.

Seven survivors of Iwo Jima were introduced to the veterans. They were greeted with applause.

A handful of younger veterans attended the ceremony. Among them was Edward Davis, 25, of Sloatsburg, a former Marine Corps scout sniper.

"I think it is great for young Marines to attend events with the older guys for pride and respect," said Davis, who was stationed in Hawaii, Korea, Spain and Japan before leaving active duty three years ago.

"It keeps the history alive."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Veteran recalls one of World War II's bloodiest battles
By Nan Snider

Special to the Sun

Russell Strickland of Black Oak has a lasting impression of Iwo Jima -- even after 61 years. To him it means more than a photo of American Marines raising Old Glory on the island's Mount Suribachi during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

It means more than a monument greeting visitors in Arlington National Cemetery among the sea of crosses.

Iwo Jima gives ex-Marine Strickland a sense of direction and commitment in life.

Strickland graduated from Black Oak High School in 1943 and joined the Marine Corps. He served with the 113th Marines Artillery-5th Marine Division. He was in combat on Iwo Jima when the U.S. flag was raised on the memorable Pacific high ground on Feb. 23, 1945.

"The tiny island of Iwo Jima is just under five miles long and two and a half miles wide at its widest point and has been described by many as a "pork chop" when viewed from the air," Strickland said. "All I have to do is close my eyes, and I can travel back in time to those days spent in Iwo Jima, this same time of year, 61 years ago.

"Iwo Jima is 625 miles north of Saipan and 660 miles south of Tokyo," he said. "The island was mostly barren, with a 556-foot (high) extinct volcano on the southern tip of the island called Mount Suribachi. The mountain housed a 7-story interior structure used by the Japanese for stockpiling weapons, ammo, radios, fuel and rations.

"The U.S. Air Force pounded Iwo Jima in what we were told was the longest sustained aerial offensive of the war, 75 days straight," he added. "No other island received as much preliminary pounding as did Iwo Jima, but incredibly, this ferocious bombardment had little affect. Hardly any of the Japanese underground fortresses were touched.

"The Japanese had fortified the island with a network of underground tunnels and bunkers," Strickland said. "The battle for Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest in U.S. Marine history as the Japanese contested every foot of the island, often emerging from caves into territory thought to be secure. What started as a quick, violent attack on Feb. 19, 1945, turned into 36 days of some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting that Marines had ever encountered."

He said the U.S. Marine 4th and 5th Divisions led the invasion, with the 3rd Division in reserve. The first day saw 2,400 American casualties, but during the battle U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers killed an estimated 20,000 Japanese and captured more than 1,000 prisoners.

On March 25, the Battle of Iwo Jima was finally over, with the United States claiming a hard-fought yet costly victory.

With control of Iwo Jima and its airfield, the Americans could launch smaller, lighter planes to serve as escorts and defenders for the B-19s which made bombing runs to mainland Japan.

Strickland arrived on the eastern beach of Iwo Jima as a part of the amphibious assault later considered to be the "ultimate storm landing," with a striking force of 74,000 Marines. The U.S. sent more Marines to Iwo Jima than to any other battle, 110,000 soldiers in 880 ships. The convoy of ships sailed from Hawaii to Iwo Jima in 40 days.

"Although planners estimated the attack on Iwo Jima should have been over within a week or less, they hadn't planned on the estimated 21,000 Japanese troops on the island," Strickland said.

During his first two weeks on Iwo Jima, Strickland worked in fire-direction, located on a Japanese pill box, from where all the artillery fire on the island was coordinated.

"We worked in 12-hour shifts," Strickland said. "My primary job was (non-commissioned officer) in charge of artillery survey.

"After two weeks our group were moved just behind the infantry front lines to use surveying instruments in an attempt to catch the flash from the Japanese mortar and artillery to determine their location. We worked in caves dug by the Japanese. We had specially trained dogs to sniff out Japanese intruders.

"It was a proud moment when our men raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi," Strickland said. "I didn't go down to see the flag raised as I had a job to do where I was, but the word came back that the U.S. flag was flying high and we were all so very proud of that."

After returning from the war Strickland attended Arkansas State University and was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. He still maintains friendships with many of his friends he made there and attends many of the fraternity functions.

Planting flags, planting trees

Strickland has gone from being a member of a group that planted flags to planting trees instead.

He has been actively involved in conservation since he started farming. He introduced no-till farming to this area and is now involved in caring for his tree farm, where he turned 110 acres back to wetlands.

The trees were planted in 1997 on land between Black Oak and the St. Francis River, in the he Poplar Ridge Community. They are now very visible from Arkansas 18 from Lake City to Black Oak.

"This piece of low land catches the overflow from Cane Island Slough Ditch," Strickland said. "It is hard, if not impossible to grow standard crops there and I thought it would be perfect for a natural wetland habitat."

Strickland worked in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state Game and Fish Commission, Arkansas Forest Service, and the Soil Conservation Service to establish the natural preserve.

Even though Strickland enjoys going out every day to look at the trees, he says that the best thing he can do is to just leave the trees alone and let them develop a good root system.

Some of the trees in the preserve include black oak, cypress, Virginia pine, persimmon, black walnut, wild plum, bur oak, redbud, bicolor lespedeza (a shrub for game birds), black gum, red maple, red trumpet creeper, paw paw, eastern red cedar, autumn olive, black Cherry, hackberry, service berry, elder berry and Chinese chestnut.

Nature lovers

Strickland and his wife, the former Melda Jean Young of Monette, are nature lovers and enjoy observing the large variety of birds that are attracted to the tree area. They are both members of the Northeast Arkansas Audubon Society, and marvelled when they saw the first eagles arrive at the tree farm last year.

Strickland knew all too well what the symbol of the American flag meant to the men of Iwo Jima. He has erected a symbol of his own at the wetland preserve, on a much smaller scale but just as meaningful to him. A carved wooden sign, honoring his father and grandfather reads, "Strickland Wet Land Nature Preserve. In memory of A.H. Strickland, 1846-1916, one of the earliest settlers in Eastern Craighead County, and his son, W.A. Strickland 1872-1941. Born at Macey, both lived out their lives in this area."

"Melda and I plan to live out our lived right here, where we were planted," Strickland said. "We hope these trees live on, long after we are gone, to help preserve the memory of this one naturally forested land and the people who dwelt here."

Ellie