On this day 75 years ago, the U.S. Marines’ invasion of Iwo
Jima reached and secured 550-foot Mount Suribachi .
Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, recorded the raising
of the Stars & Stripes, which showed five Marines and one Navy corpsman
struggling to hoist the heavy flag pole. The picture became the most reproduced
photograph in history and won Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize.
This song is a tribute to Patterson Hood’s grandfather’s
call to duty in 1941, the same call my Dad and so many others heard and heeded
in those dark days long ago. Although Hollywood
sometimes glosses over the tremendous cost of war, the true cost is felt by the
men & women who answered the call and are often reticent to speak of it in
terms of glory, only pain.
If they speak of it at all.
