Flags of Our Fathers

by James Bradley

  I tried to talk to him. But my words could not compete with his loud breathing. And I was crying, besides.

  I silently thanked him for being a good man, a good father, someone whom I could admire. I told him all the reasons I loved him.

  After about twenty minutes, I left the room to shed my winter coat and rinse my face. When I reentered the room about five minutes later, Dad’s breathing had dramatically changed. His chest rose slowly now. Within a couple of minutes, his breathing slowed some more.

  I summoned the nurse. She put an oxygen mask on Dad’s face. I told her that the family had decided against intervention.

  “This will just ease his last moments,” she said quietly.

  I telephoned my mother. Then Steve, who called Tom; both of them lived nearby. I telephoned Barb, Patrick, and Mark in Wausau, forty miles away.

  Within twenty minutes the nearby Bradleys—Steve, his children Paul and Sarah, Tom, Joe, my mother, and me—were all by his side.

  My mother cradled his head, brushed his hair, kissed his forehead. We all touched and kissed him. His breathing got weaker.

  “Jack, are you leaving us now?” Betty Van Gorp Bradley whispered. “It’s all right if you leave us when you’re ready,” his wife whispered. “It’s all right, Jack.”

  At 2:12 A.M. on Tuesday, January 11, 1994, John Bradley took a small breath, exhaled, and died.

  Several hours later, while my brothers were taking care of the arrangements, I sat peacefully in the dark looking at Dad, just sitting and thinking and, perhaps, praying. I noticed the nurse standing slightly behind me. The one who had eased my dad’s last minutes.

  “He waited for you,” she whispered.

  We both gazed at John Bradley for a few seconds.

  She put her hand on my shoulder. “He waited for you,” she repeated.

  His wake was held in the funeral home where he had comforted so many. It was the largest anyone could remember. When the well-wishers shook our hands to express their condolences, we could feel that they were bone cold, chilled after waiting in the long line outside in the freezing winter.

  We heard many stories about our father that evening, stories of silent kindness that he never brought home with him. But no one mentioned Iwo Jima or The Photograph. One woman said she had read the obituaries but did not know the war hero who was on the monument in Arlington or the sailor on the postage stamp. She said she knew a man who helped her parents with their parents’ funerals and had become a friend of the family. She knew a man who had raised his family in Antigo and worked to make Antigo a good place to live. She said that was the man she would miss.

  So John Bradley had achieved his goal and died as more than a figure in a photograph.

  The morning after the wake, just before the church service, we had the closing-of-casket ceremony at the funeral home. This was the family’s last chance to say good-bye to husband, father, father-in-law, grandpa.

  Some of our family placed small personal items in his casket: a poem, a ring. I walked down the hall of the Bradley Funeral Home and entered my father’s office. I faced the only photo hanging there. I gently removed it from the wall and returned to my father’s side.

  I turned to my family to get their attention. I held the photo high. All could see themselves in it, posed in a family reunion shot that John Bradley had never tired of bragging about.

  “That is the only photo he cared about,” I said, and then slid it into his casket.

  We six “Johnny’s boys” were his pallbearers. Rolling his casket up the aisle of St. John’s, I was surprised that even though the church was packed to the gills, it was utterly silent. Like a void, more silent than when empty. The silence of a community’s utter sadness.

  At the end of the ceremony we all stood in our pews silently facing Dad’s casket. The back doors to St. John’s Church were opened. Outside, beyond the back door and down the steps, stood a lone bugler bathed in frigid sunshine. He played “Taps.” The crisp and somber notes swept through the mourners and we wept.

  Chiseled on John Bradley’s simple gray headstone in the Queen of Peace Cemetery are the words he learned from his mother, the words that got him through Iwo Jima, the words he repeated with his wife every night before sleeping: Blessed Mother Help Us.

  After he was gone, his actions continued to speak louder than words. I was stunned to learn that my father had been awarded the Navy Cross. Stunned. I read his citation over and over and was so proud of him and his life-saving actions on Iwo Jima.

  I’ll never truly understand the structure of my dad’s wall of silence. Perhaps my daughter Alison’s “Letter to Grandpa” comes close to describing the bewilderment and awe left in John Bradley’s wake.

  Alison was a fifteen-year-old high-school student with an assignment: Write a short letter to the person you admire the most.

  She chose her Grandpa Bradley, who had been dead for three years.

  Dear Grandpa,

  You’ll see on the envelope there is no address. I sat for a long time and wondered where to address it. Heaven? Is that where you are? I had no way of knowing, so I hope that this ends up getting to you.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. I just have a few questions I need answered.

  This past holiday Daddy took us to Washington, D.C., for a few days to learn more about you. Daddy told us stories of your youth.

  He told us how as a young, unmarried man you boarded a cramped boat with thousands of other young Marines and shipped off to Iwo Jima to either live or die. World War II was such a horrible thing for your generation.

  I saw the letter you wrote to your mother from Mount Suribachi. You described how filthy you all were and how you would give your “left arm for a good shower and a clean shave.” How did you do it? I’ll never know.

  Finally, Daddy showed us the original footage of the flagraising in 1945. Over and over we saw you and your friends raise that flag.

  This was our background to the trip, no more, no less.

  But once in Washington, D.C., the enormity of the event and your contribution sank in. In our four days we climbed up your leg at the Marine Corps Memorial, had a personal tour of Congress, and a private tour of the White House.

  I have finally obtained knowledge and understanding of the love and respect that the world has for you. In four days there I learned more about you than I did in the twelve years that I knew you.

  Why did you not tell us about the Navy Cross?

  And how about the time that Congress stopped and the Senate lined up to shake your hand? Why did you never sit us on your knee and tell us these stories?

  The only answer I can give myself is that you were a quiet, modest, and honorable man who did not bask in glory. The only words that you ever spoke in front of a camera were, “I was in a certain place at a certain time. None of us are real heroes; we all just jumped in and lent a hand.”

  These words illustrate your feelings exactly. You just wanted a normal, ordinary family life with your wife and eight children. And that is exactly what you had. After you died a local newspaper wrote, “Bradley was the sole survivor of the flagraising for more than 14 years. He often was asked to attend banquets and dinners and give interviews. But Bradley was a quiet man who operated the Bradley Funeral Home in Antigo. He declined.”

  The article ends, “His silence has been honorable. And now it is eternal.”

  I write this letter exactly fifty-two years to the day since the flagraising on Iwo Jima. I sat for about an hour before I started writing to you and tried to picture exactly how you felt and what it was like being on that little island thousands of miles from home. To you there was no glory in an operation that cost two nations so dearly.

  Every year on your birthday, Grandpa, we all go off to your grave and tell stories about how it was when you were alive. We always sing your favorite songs. Can you hear us?

  My questions are pointless seeing as I’ll never know the answer. I just needed to ask them. I can
not send this to you so it will go into my drawer, but wherever you are, heaven or otherwise, I do hope you receive my letter.

  We are all healthy and our lives are going well.

  Your loving Granddaughter,

  Alison Bradley

  In the saga of the figures in The Photograph, my dad came to play a unique role. He was the “last survivor” for fifteen years. For a decade and a half he was the only one.

  And being the last survivor, he endured increased demands from authors, journalists, and documentarians. He politely refused all their entreaties. Until Betty asked. She wanted him to endure his first and last taped interview in 1985. “Do it for your grandchildren,” she implored.

  The transcript of this interview has never been published. I obtained it after my dad’s death. My father answers the interviewer’s questions carefully, weighing every word. Asked to describe his participation in the raising of a pole, John Bradley says:

  When I came upon the scene, they were just finishing attaching the flag to the pole and they were just ready to raise it up.

  I just did what anybody else would have done. I just gave them a hand. That’s the way it is in combat. You just help anyone who needs a hand.

  They didn’t ask for my help. I just jumped in and gave them a hand.

  Then the last survivor smiles, and recalls his buddies:

  Harlon: “A tall Texan. Always had a smile…”

  Franklin: “We loved his stories told in that Kentucky brogue.”

  Rene: “I was best man at his wedding, you know.”

  Mike: “A great teacher. We all respected Mike.”

  Ira: “I always had a lot of respect for Ira Hayes. He was one great guy.”

  John then speaks for all the flagraisers, something he had never done before. He wanted to convey a message that he was sure the other guys would endorse: “People refer to us as heroes. We certainly weren’t heroes. And I speak for the rest of the guys as well.”

  “…certainly weren’t heroes.”

  After spending five years researching their lives, the boys certainly seem like heroes to me. I admit it.

  But I must defer to my father. He was there. He knew the guys, knew what they did. His hands were on that pole. And John was a straight arrow all his life. He said the same things about the flagraising at sixty-two as he had at twenty-two. And he was confident enough in his conclusion to claim the right to speak for the other guys.

  So I will take my dad’s word for it: Mike, Harlon, Franklin, Ira, Rene, and Doc, the men of Easy Company—they just did what anybody would have done, and they were not heroes.

  Not heroes.

  They were boys of common virtue.

  Called to duty.

  Brothers and sons. Friends and neighbors.

  And fathers.

  It’s as simple as that.

  AFTERWORD TO THE 2006 PAPERBACK EDITION

  A Letter

  To: John Bradley

  From: James Bradley

  Dear Dad,

  I stood tensely in the damp chill, imagining the bloody horror you saw in that volcanic hole of torture. There and then I decided to dedicate this new edition of Flags of Our Fathers to you, John Bradley, my own father.

  I saw you cry on that Iwo Jima, Dad. You were young “Doc” then, suddenly old after weeks of administering medical aid to screaming boys. The tortured remains you wept over in that cave had once been your best buddy, Iggy. I saw you when you came out, staring blankly ahead, moving quickly, imagining you could distance yourself from the memory.

  You remember, Dad. It was in Iceland on September 4,2005. I and your grandchildren Ava and Jack were watching Clint Eastwood direct Ryan Phillippe as he played you—Doc Bradley—in the movie Flags of Our Fathers. I felt you were there too.

  I imagine you’re not surprised that Hollywood is depicting you for the fourth time.

  You witnessed the six-decades-long power of The Photograph, a power constantly rejuvenated by the deepest thoughts and feelings of millions.

  And its luminous power shone even before you were aware of what Joe Rosenthal had captured in that 1/400th of a second.

  On Sunday, February 25, 1945—while you and your battle-scarred buddies were still atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi—a good Catholic mother named Mrs. Sweeney walked into her Boston living room. On her wall hung two images: Jesus and FDR. Not even her kids could get their mugs up there. That day, when Mrs. Sweeney beheld The Photograph in her newspaper, she immediately took her scissors, cut the image out, tenderly framed it, and then nailed her third sacred icon on the Sweeney family’s living room wall.

  Within days, thousands of citizens petitioned the U.S. Postal Service for a commemorative stamp to honor The Photograph.

  “No Iwo Jima stamp!” thundered the Postmaster General.

  The problem was that such a stamp would feature still-living people. Only dead people—even presidents—get their image on U.S. postage.

  “But we insist!” thundered Mr. and Mrs. America, generating mounds of telegrams that soon filled rooms in the White House. That stamp, with you in the center, became the biggest seller in U.S. history.

  In the early years after the war, you imagined the fuss over The Photograph would die down. But since that 1945 Iwo Jima stamp, there have been two more.

  And an Iwo Jima silver dollar was minted just last year.

  The Arlington, Virginia, statue is still the world’s tallest bronze monument. And every year new statues of The Photograph are being erected across the country.

  Mike, Harlon, and Franklin never saw The Photograph. They were buried on Iwo Jima along with almost 7,000 American boys and 22,000 Japanese boys. Now Ira, Rene, and you are gone too. But none of you are absent for those who loved you, nor for the millions who see meaning in your images. At the recent Massachusetts dedication of their new Iwo Jima statue, I felt you guys there beside me.

  Some see Flags of Our Fathers as a phenomenon concerning a book and me. People constantly ask me if I am “surprised” and “excited” that your story is a bestselling book and a blockbuster movie. But the Photograph has always drawn first-rate attention.

  When Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with an Iwo Jima Flagraising float, they perceive it’s their inspiration. They don’t realize that they are among the millions who have been caught up in the power of that 1/400th of a second.

  A few years ago I thought I wrote a book. Now I understand that I served The Photograph.

  John Wayne also served The Photograph, in Sands of Iwo Jima, the first Hollywood movie to depict the flagraising. The concrete imprints of Wayne’s fist and shoes are in the famous forecourt of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The two million people who visit Grauman’s annually notice that John Wayne’s plaque is different from those of the other movie stars. His plaque is black. America’s number one movie idol asked for black concrete, made from black sand. From the black sands of Iwo Jima.

  The power of The Photograph flows through past, present, and future.

  There will be more movies about The Photograph. America will issue more coins and stamps and sculpt new statues in your likeness. There will be more books.

  My service to the saga is complete, six years since the day I handed over the manuscript. Now, in 2006, the immortal image’s continuing power moves Bantam Books and Clint Eastwood to enhance and retell the saga. And The Photograph will tell its story through others in the future.

  People ask me, “What would your father think about the book?” I answer, “If he were alive, he’d move to Alaska and pull out the phones.” But, Dad, you’re not alive. And I think you are gratified that I wrote of you and your fellow flagraisers as ordinary guys, not bronzed warriors of “uncommon valor.” The beauty of The Photograph is that you six were boys of “common virtue.”

  That’s the example you set for us. When I was nineteen and wanted to go to Japan to study, you sent me. At the time I didn’t realize how difficult that might have been for you. The young
Japanese friends I brought to our home found that my father was warm and welcoming. Twenty-year-old Emi Oshima—watching a Bass Lake sunset with you—asked you if you weren’t a little uncomfortable hosting your son’s Japanese friends.

  Years after your death she told me that you had assured her with a smile, “Emi, Iwo Jima was a long time ago. I welcome you to my home as a friend of my son and as a friend of my family.”

  Finally, I am happy to report that proceeds from my books are creating scholarships that send American high school students to study in Japan or China. Maybe these kids who study in your name will make a difference. Maybe there will be no more Iwo Jimas.

  Dad, see you this summer when the family visits your grave. I’ll cry again when we sing those two songs you loved.

  Love,

  James Bradley

  Rye, New York

  February 23, 2006

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I was ten years old when the war ended. I thought the returning veterans were giants who had saved the world from barbarism. I still think so. I remain a hero worshiper. Over the decades I’ve interviewed thousands of the veterans. It is a privilege to hear their stories, then write them up.

  —STEPHEN AMBROSE

  Walking Harlon’s football field with his brother Ed…listening to Mary describe her last time with Mike…standing with Kenny over the spot where he found Ira dead. How can I thank the flagraisers’ relatives who accepted me as family? You gave me five more brothers.

  Dad, now I know why you didn’t talk about Iwo Jima. And I’m glad I know.

  To my family, thank you for trusting me with this story. I tried to honor your trust by getting it right.

  Dave Severance guided my search for the flagraisers’ pasts. He demonstrated limitless patience for my endless questions, and this book could not have been written without his help. My life has been enriched getting to know this American hero.