Just saw 'Flags Of Our Fathers'

[thedrifter]

Markfontman) and I went to the first showing in this town.

Yep...with a bunch of Marines..

I can say I enjoyed the movie, and Mark said he did too.

Pretty much based on the book, so if You enjoyed the read...You will enjoy the movie

The end touch me and had tears running down my face..

Go get some popcorn and soda and enjoy the movie.

Ellie

[chrisnica]

Well alright, I'll try to catch it before I leave to MCT.

[quillhill]

I want to scope this movie out, too. Since hubby is working tonight, maybe I will go solo. I hope it's educational as well as entertaining.

[thedrifter]

Ray Levato talks with Iwo Jima Marine

10/20/06

See News 10NBC Report

The Clint Eastwood movie "Flags of Our Fathers" opened in theaters nationwide Friday. The story was taken from a book written by a son of one of the six marines who raised the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima. Ray Levato spoke with the man who brought that flag ashore. They had names like Tarawa, Guadalcanal and Okinawa. The U.S. island-hopping strategy; capture these dots of land and rock in the vast pacific to get American bombers close enough to launch the assault on the Japanese homeland. One of those islands symbolized the tremendous sacrifice the U.S. Marines made in World War II, Iwo Jima.


The Navy amassed an armada of hundreds of ships. They leveled the island with three days of steady naval bombardment, but the 21,000 Japanese defenders were dug in caves. They let the marines land and then opened up. The black coral sand beaches were turned red. Nearly seven thousand marines died on Iwo Jima.


Fred Huffman, who we met at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was a 20-year-old Marine Private at Iwo Jima with the 2nd Marine Division. “I was on the 1st 779 standing in the front of the ship waiting for it to hit the beach. I was standing next to a buddy of mine and he had a folded flag in his hand. I said 'what's with the flag, Mitch?' And he said it was going to be raised on the mountain. It's our ship's flag. About that time he went like this and said 'geez, I forgot my canteen,' said Huffman.


It was then that fate would intervene and Huffman became a part of history. “Here hold the flag. He took off to go back down in the hold to get his canteen. Of course I couldn't stay there. I had to go to the beach. He said he was supposed to give it to the beachmaster, which was a colonel. So we got ashore and I could see the beachmaster way down the beach at the foot of the island,” Huffman recalled. “So he handed the flag over. “He hollered for the sergeant, some staff sergeant standing back there and he said ‘here's what you're waiting for sergeant.' and he came up running and took the flag up the hill. A few minutes later they raised it. All the marines on the island let out a howl. You could hear them to Tokyo I think to se that flag go up.”


Ray Levato asked, how did you personally feel? Huffman replied, “very proud, very proud.”


He came running up and took the flag and took off up the hill. The beachmaster Huffman gave the flag to was killed shortly after. He says later found out his friend, Sgt. Mitchell was right behind him and he also got killed on the beach.


Huffman is now 82. “I don't know. All I can is I think it was great. I think it was great he was able to do that. It's just too bad that all the guys had to get killed. So many of them got killed after that,” said Huffman.


At Huffman’s Rochester home today, he said he spent 35 months and 17 days overseas. He was wounded three times. “Like some guy said there, the heroes are all dead. Us guys are no heroes. We had a job to do, that's all. We just did our job.”


Huffman says he saw the movie "Flags of Our Fathers" in a special preview. For someone who was there, he didn't think it was very realistic. It played up the politics too much. By the way, the flag in the AP photo actually was the 2nd U.S. flag raised on Mt. Suribachi. History notes that a group of Marines raised a smaller flag earlier on February 23, 1945.

Ellie

[6yrforMar]

Just went to see "Flags of Our Fathers".It was a little different from the book.It was a decent movie and did show the audience the brutality of war,the politics maybe a little.I was not around at the time,it seems people at the time were discouraged about the war as they are now,it is very surprising to me.It gives Honor to those who gave their lives on Iwo Jima and to those who survived.

[thedrifter]

John Clayton: As movie opens, letter tells story

By JOHN CLAYTON
Union Leader Staff
Friday, Oct. 20, 2006

STARTING TODAY, the world will discover anew the courage and valor of the Marines who fought and died on Iwo Jima, as "Flags of Our Fathers" - the new film by Clint Eastwood - reaches movie theaters at last.

For those of us in New Hampshire, the undeniable focus of the film will be Rene Gagnon.

He didn't know it then, but the 19-year-old mill worker from Manchester was racing toward a kind of immortality when he grabbed an American flag and ran to the pinnacle of Mt. Suribachi, because the subsequent photograph of that flag being raised is among the most iconic images in the medium of photography.

That image provided inspiration for the book, "Flags of Our Fathers." It was written by James Bradley, the son of another flag raiser, Navy Corpsman John Bradley.

I've read the book - contributed to it, in fact - and I'd be less than candid if I said I was thrilled with the book's overall portrayal of Rene Gagnon. From all advance accounts, the film is faithful to the book. I'll still see the film - and I'll weigh and measure Jesse Bradford's portrayal of Rene Gagnon - but I'll still cling to my own perception of the man.

It's been forged over time, research and study.

It's just been reinforced by a newly discovered cache of letters.

Back in January, Rene Gagnon's widow, Pauline (Harnois) Gagnon, passed away. After the inevitable period of grieving, the family recently started clearing out her apartment at the corner of Bridge and Walnut streets.

"The executors were just packing things in these big garbage bags," said Rene's grandson, Joshua Gagnon, "and rather than just letting them throw everything out, we started looking through the bags. That's when we found this small cardboard box."

The cardboard box was packed with letters.

They were hand-written letters, dozens of them.

They were love letters.

They're the letters that Rene Gagnon wrote to his future wife, Pauline Harnois, who would come to be known throughout America as "The Sweetheart of Iwo Jima." They called her that because Rene kept a picture of her inside his helmet. That's what he told reporters when the identity of the flag raisers became known.

I need to fill in some of the back story.

The flag-raising photo was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, but it didn't show up on the front pages of newspapers everywhere - The Union Leader included - until Feb. 26, 1945.

The impact of Joe Rosenthal's photo was so visceral that everyone in America wanted to know the names of the six young men who were raising that flag. By the time their names were known, three of the six were dead, killed in the savage battle that was still being waged on Iwo Jima.

Rene Gagnon of Manchester was 19 when he and five other soldiers helped raise the American flag over Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945. The savage battle produced World War II's most memorable image and is now the subject of Clint Eastwood's movie, "Flags of Our Fathers."

Sensing the potential for public relations gain, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that the three survivors be shipped stateside.

In the months that followed, the three survivors - Rene, John Bradley and a Pima Indian from Arizona named Ira Hayes - traveled the length and breadth of the country on a fund-raising tour. The product was war bonds. They were the packaging. In eight weeks, they raised $26.3 billion.

They were lauded as "The Heroes of Iwo Jima."

It was a label they came to despise, because to them, the real heroes were the guys who didn't come home. That's the message that comes through in Jim Bradley's book and it's sure to be echoed in the Clint Eastwood film, but here in Manchester, the more important message of the moment is the discovery of the letters that Rene Gagnon wrote to his girl.

Josh Gagnon shared the letters with me. They're innocent, romantic and touching and one letter in particular is stunning in its understatement.

It was written on Feb. 24, 1945.

It was written the day after the flag raising. It was crafted in the form of a V-Mail - a microfilm process that reduced the size and bulk of mail - and with its telegramese-style, its matter-of-fact tone, its straight-from-the-heart prose and yes, its spotty spelling, it is a thing of subtle beauty.

"Dearest Darling," it begins.

"Now I can tell you why I didn't write; we were in action on Iwo Jima, you've probably read about it in the papers as it was a pretty tough battle; Outside of being muddy, dirty and need a shave pretty bad as we've been here quite a while.

"I'm allright, so I guess you'll forgive me for not writting. I'll be glad to get mail from you since it's been quite a while since I've last heard from you. I got your pictures with the evening gown aboard ship, so I put them in my helmet and carried them with me. I still got them and there not banged up to much. You still look beautiful darling."

The post script was Marine Corps-classic.

"P.S.," he wrote. "Tell your dad I'll send him a Jap rifle for a souvenir."

The Gagnons discovered more than 150 similar letters in Pauline's apartment. They were written from Parris Island during Rene's stretch in boot camp and from Fort Pendleton in California and, of course, from Iwo Jima. In addition to his own hand, they include scribbled notes from his buddies - Dee Dee Seager told Pauline that Rene was "the best Yankee I've ever come in contact with!" - and most begin with the following salutation:

"Dear Kiddo."

The letters are filled with Manchester references, from the Palace Theater to Pine Island Park. He writes of "fighting for the right to go back to the mills and 'doff,'" because he worked at Chicopee Mills as a doffer and those local touches triggered an idea in Joshua Gagnon.

He's consulting the New Hampshire Writers Project about compiling the letters in book form, but in the meantime, Josh and his partner, Brandon Mallard, are crafting a stage performance around the letters.

"For me, it's been such a nice experience because I never knew my grandfather," Josh said. "He died in 1979 and I wasn't born until 1983, and as much as the letters mean to me, I knew right away that they should be shared.

"A book is one way to do that, but on the stage, it could be even more moving. We're working through the basics; my grandmother's character reading the letters and my grandfather's character reading them as he's writing them. It was such a romantic time, and there's a real romantic quality to the letters, so we're hoping to have something ready for the stage by Valentine's Day."

But first, Josh will go see "Flags of Our Fathers."

"I'm intrigued to see the way my grandfather will be portrayed," he said, "but either way, it's exciting. Not many people know who my grandfather was anymore, so I think it can only help to bring back the memory of something special that he was a part of."

John Clayton is the author of several books on Manchester and New Hampshire, including the recently released "You Know You're in New Hampshire When..." His e-mail is jclayton@unionleader.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Area Iwo Jima veterans praise movie's accuracy

By Lisa Horn
Montgomery Advertiser

Three local Iwo Jima veterans say the new film "Flags of our Fathers" is a fairly accurate depiction of what they experienced during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

The movie, which was released Friday, follows the lives of three of the six Marines depicted in one of the most famous photographs of the war. The picture shows them raising an American flag on the island's Mount Suribachi.

Former Marines Nelson Donley, Jim Wright and Bill Burleson saw the film Friday.

Donley, 82, landed on Iwo Jima on Feb. 20, 1945, a day after the initial assault, and served as a 20-year-old private first class with Fleet Marine Force Pacific, an amphibious reconnaissance unit.

"I thought the film was pretty good," he said. "It covered the parts of Iwo all right, but it was more (on) the book than anything else. ... It followed the line of the book very well."

Though some of the combat scenes are intensely bloody, hearkening to some scenes in "Saving Private Ryan," Donley felt it was a valid depiction of what he and his fellow Marines saw in combat.

"They were pretty true. It was pretty grisly, particularly in the northern end," Donley said. "I didn't get up there, but I think, overall, (the filmmakers) did a pretty good job of it."

Burleson, 84, was a 22-year-old corporal with the 5th Amphibious Corps Signal Battal ion when his unit landed on Iwo Jima on Feb. 24.

"I thought it was rather good," he said. "The last two movies that have come out about Marine Corps stuff have really been dogs, especially the last one," he said referring to the movies "Windtalkers" and "Jarhead."

Burleson, Donley and Wright were impressed with some of the finer details of the film which perhaps only historians and those who fought in the battle would know.

"The dog tags were real and ... they did a good job of showing some of those pillboxes and some of those caves ... because that was the problem," Burleson said. "You'd move a rock and there would be hole in there and a cave."

The majority of the combat scenes in "Flags of our Fathers" were filmed in Iceland, but the black sand beaches of the country did not make for as treacherous terrain as what the Marines experienced, the veterans said.

"The ash at Iwo was 10 times worse than what they had on the movie," Donley said. "When you got off (the troop carriers) you were buried up ankle deep or so, and (the movie) showed people going up the beach and equipment going up the beach."

Wright, 80, served as an 18-year-old buck private with A Company, 1st Battalion of the 25th Marines at the north end of Iwo Jima near the island's rock quarry and northernmost airfield. The Sidney Lanier High School graduate received minor flesh wounds to his left knee and right hip during the battle.

"It's well-done," he said of the film. "But not one I would add to my collection. It's grim. We need to quit war."

Clint Eastwood, director of the movie, said he hoped the film would show what makes a hero. That message wasn't lost on the local Marines.

"You're always proud that you were a part of it," Donley said of his experience. "I feel the same as (the characters) did -- the heroes are the ones that didn't walk off."

"Absolutely," Burleson said.

"I don't care what operation we were in on," Donley added, "they were the heroes."

Ellie

[6yrforMar]

After seeing the movie,my wife is starting to read the book "FLags of Our Fathers".She wants to know the characters in the story of the flag raising better.She was somewhat saddened of the outcome during and after the War Bond tour.She said the Marines on Iwo Jima had extreme courage and can understand their pride when the US Flag is raised.She told me she under stands why the Marine Corps. training is so tough."Semper Fi"

[10thzodiac]

For weeks now, I have been smoothing the way for my Japanese wife to accompany me to see this movie.

Yesterday before the movie, I promised her lunch at this terrific Mexican buffet close to the theater. Friday morning, I fired up my 'puter to check the show time listings, huh, it is not playing at any close big multi-flick theaters!

I am assuming it is being played only at selected theaters in the Chicago land area. There are many local theaters close but none are showing it, at least not yet anyways. The closest theater is over one hour round trip and for now, she does not want to go. They do have a great sushi buffet close to that theater, but guess who likes sushi and who does not, lol.

Does the movie show anything from the defenders view, because I heard something about that, or was that a Japanese sequel that Eastwood is planning to make ?

SF

10^th

[68Poncho]

Just got back from seein the movie, I thought it was great.
And I actually learned a few things.

[hrscowboy]

I wanna know who was the general that said in the Movie that Ira Hays was a disgrace to the uniform and to send him back to the action???

[68Poncho]

General Alexander A. Vandegrift, USMC (1887-1973).
18th Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1 January 1944 - 1 January 1948

[6yrforMar]

The incident occured at Chicago`s Soldier Field,they Ira Hayes,John Bradley,Rene Gagnon rode around in an Cadillac convertble inside of Soldier Field before the Reenactment of the Flag Raising,Ira Hayes was so drunk he was held up by John Bradley on one side and Rene Gagnon on the other.They passed a reviewing stand with the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Gen.Vandegrift he was the Gen.in the movie.Back in those days they did not understand too much about PTSD,I think Ira Hayes was very tormented by his combat experience. Semper Fi

[quillhill]

So I just saw the movie and it finally cleared up something for me that I wasn't able to figure out from the pictures of my grandfather and his records (as some of the writing was obscured in the photocopies).

As soon as I saw that division patch on the uniform, I knew it, I just had to come home, look at the records and do a bit of searching.

Weapons Co., 26th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division.

So, Clint Eastwood, thank you for the movie and thank you for helping me finally make that connection.

I loved it. I was humbled by it. It was enlightening. There are things that make sense now that didn't before about Marines from that era and Marines in general.

[Seeley]

Just saw it Sunday night. Freaking awesome!