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<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Six Boys And Thirteen Hands.</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
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<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Each year I am hired to go to
Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from
Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I
greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each
year I take some special memories back with me. This
fall's trip was especially memorable. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">On the last night of our trip, we
stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the
largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of
the most famous photographs in history -- that of the
six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top
of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during
WW II. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Over one hundred students and chaperons
piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I
noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and
as I got closer he asked, 'Where are you guys from?' </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">I told him that we were from Wisconsin.
'Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese
heads, and I will tell you a story.' </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">(It was James Bradley who just happened
to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the
following day. He was there that night to say good night
to his dad, who had passed away. He was just about to
leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as
he spoke to us, and received his permission to share
what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour
the incredible monuments filled with history in
Washington, DC, but it is quite another to get the kind
of insight we received that night.) </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">When all had gathered around, he
reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that
night.) </span></b></div>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
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<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'My name is James Bradley and I'm from
Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on that statue, and I just
wrote a book called 'Flags of Our Fathers' which is #5
on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is
the story of the six boys you see behind me. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'Six boys raised the flag. The first
guy putting the pole in the ground is <span
class="yiv449708663SpellE">Harlon</span> Block. <span
class="yiv449708663SpellE">Harlon</span> was an
all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine
Corps with all the senior members of his football team.
They were off to play another type of game. A game
called 'War.' But it didn't turn out to be a game. <span
class="yiv449708663SpellE">Harlon</span>, at the age
of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't
say that to gross you out, I say that because there are
people who stand in front of this statue and talk about
the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the
boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old - and it
was so hard that the ones who did make it home never
even would talk to their families about it. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">(He pointed to the statue) 'You see
this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If
you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was
taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you
would find a photograph...a photograph of his
girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection
because he was scared. He was 18 years old. It was just
boys who won the battle of Iwo Jima . Boys. Not old men.
</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'The next guy here, the third guy in
this tableau, was Sergeant Mike <span
class="yiv449708663SpellE">Strank</span>. Mike is my
hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him
the 'old man' because he was so old. He was already 24.
When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he
didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die
for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys.
Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get
you home to your mothers.' </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'The last guy on this side of the
statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira
Hayes was one of them who lived to walk off Iwo Jima. He
went into the White House with my dad. President Truman
told him, 'You're a hero' He told reporters, 'How can I
feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island
with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">So you take your class at school, 250
of you spending a year together having fun, doing
everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach,
but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was
Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira
Hayes carried the pain home with him and eventually died
dead drunk, face down, drowned in a very shallow puddle,
at the age of 32 (ten years after this picture was
taken). </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'The next guy, going around the statue,
is Franklin <span class="yiv449708663SpellE">Sousley</span>
from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-<span
class="yiv449708663SpellE">lovin</span>' hillbilly
boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you
know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop
General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so
the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom
salts. Those cows crapped all night.' Yes, he was a fun-<span
class="yiv449708663SpellE">lovin</span>' hillbilly
boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When
the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead,
it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran
that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors
could hear her scream all night and into the morning.
Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'The next guy, as we continue to go
around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley, from Antigo,
Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994,
but he would never give interviews. When Walter
Cronkite's producers or the New York Times would call,
we were trained as little kids to say, 'No, I'm sorry,
sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No,
there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he
is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to
Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table
eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press
that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the
press. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn't
see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are
heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My
dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from
Wisconsin was a combat caregiver. On Iwo Jima he
probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys
died on Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed, without any
medication or help with the pain. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'When I was a little boy, my third
grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I
went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and
said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of
Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT
come back.' </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">'So that's the story about six nice
young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back
as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima
in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps.
My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you
for your time.' </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a
big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the
top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a
hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would
believe, but a hero nonetheless.</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">We need to remember that God created
this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely,
but also at great sacrifice. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Let us never forget from the
Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and
all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our
freedom...please pray for our troops. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Remember to pray praises for this great
country of ours and also...please pray for our troops
still in murderous places around the world.</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">STOP and thank God for being alive and
being free due to someone else's sacrifice.</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">God? Bless You and God Bless America! <br>
</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up
free, it's going to be a great day.</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">One thing I learned while on tour with
my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here
is that if you look at the statue very closely and count
the number of 'hands' raising the flag, there are 13.
When the man who made the statue was asked why there
were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of
God. </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt"> </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv449708663MsoNormal"><b><span
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'; COLOR: navy;
FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Great story - worth your time - worth
every American's time. Please pass it on.</span></b></div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Molon labe." MILLIONS of us will be waiting!
--USA Patriots, 2013</pre>
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