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thedrifter
01-14-07, 11:22 AM
Updated 8:21 AM on Sunday, January 14, 2007

Day Trips: Memorial honors Iwo Jima

By GERALD E. MCLEOD
Eagle Columnist

The Iwo Jima War Memorial in Harlingen predates the famous Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia by several years. The 32-foot statue topped with a 78-foot flagpole was a powerful sight, even before the Clint Eastwood-directed movie, Flags of Our Fathers, reignited interest in the events of Feb. 23, 1945, on the Japanese island.

Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph almost by accident as six Marines replaced a smaller flag with a larger one. Rosenthal later said that if he had staged the photograph, he would have done it much differently, and it would not have become one of the defining images of World War II.

At the instant he took the picture, Rosenthal could not have known that the men represented a cross-section of American youth fighting on Iwo Jima. Three of the six were killed there.

Felix Weihs de Weldon, the Austrian-born sculptor of the statue, began working on a scale model within days of seeing the Rosenthal picture. Using the three survivors and photographs of the three who died in action as models, de Weldon took nine years to create the 100-ton bronze statue that is on display in Washington. The Nov. 10, 1954, dedication of the monument was the last time the three survivors were photographed together.

The South Texas monument is the original, full-size plaster model that de Weldon created to use for the bronze casting. That model languished in an upstate New York warehouse until 1981, when he donated it to the Marine Military Academy, a college preparatory school and summer camp for boys in Harlingen.

The size and detail of this statue are breathtaking. The 32-foot soldiers with 16-foot rifles overshadow the tanks and artillery guns that sit outside the military museum on the other side of a gravel parking lot. The larger-than-life faces of the Marines stare down at visitors with a steely resolve that was absent from the original photograph but that captures the spirit of the moment.

A nearby headstone marks the final resting place of Harlon Block, one of the six marines in Rosenthal's iconic photo. Born in Yorktown, Texas, Block enlisted right after graduating from Weslaco High School and landed on Iwo Jima five days before his famous trip up Mount Suribachi. He was killed by a mortar blast a week after the photograph was taken.

Originally, the government identified the soldier holding the base of the flag pole as Harry Hansen of Boston. When Block's mother saw the photograph, she correctly identified her son even though his back was to the camera. Eighteen months later, congressional investigators agreed, and Block received his place of honor.

None of the soldiers in Rosenthal's iconic photograph saw themselves as heroes, but to U.S. citizens exhausted by the horrors of war, it was a moment of pride as the image flashed across newpaper front pages all over the country. The image still conveys the meaning of the ultimate sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

The monument is at the entrance to the Marine Military Academy on the north side of Harlingen at Loop 499 and 25th Street (F.M. 507). The military museum and gift shop are open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. For information, call 1-800-365-6006 or go to www.mma-tx.org.

• Gerald E. McLeod's Day Trips, Vol. 2 is available for $12. Mail to: Day Trips, P.O. Box 33284, South Austin, Texas 78704.

Ellie