Iwo Jima: 65th Anniversary

Missed this on Friday and shame on me for letting the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima slip past. The month long battle saw some of the worst fighting of WWII. The Japanese on the island were an intractable foe. Of the 22,786 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 21,570 died fighting or by ritual suicide. For most Americans the battle is symbolized by the Joe Rosenthal photograph taken on February 23, 1945. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States on Mount Suribachi. We owe the Greatest Generation of Americans a debt to large to repay: today take a moment and remember the soldiers who died on small island and thank them for the liberty you enjoy every day.

WNC Iwo Jima Veteran Wants Youths To Understand The True Meaning Of Casualties Of War

Edward Lannigan has a box full of medals that testify to his heroic service in the Pacific Theater during World War II, including his presence at Iwo Jima, the bloodiest battle in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. The battle began 65 years ago this weekend.

In Lannigan's box are two Purple Hearts, a Silver Medal, two presidential citations and other awards attached to fading ribbons, small but poignant recognition of the bravery of a young man — a boy, really — who would return home from war with shrapnel in his skull and only one functional arm and hand.

But the medals are not on display. They live inside the box in a dark corner of the bottom drawer of the desk in his study.

There are many veterans who proudly showcase their war-related decorations. Lannigan is not one of them.

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D-Day: 65 Years Later

We live free because of these men. Because of their sacrifice we've never known a day, a minute, a second of true oppression or tyranny. They knew they were going to die and deemed the price worthwhile. It's a debt that cannot be repaid.

President Salutes Veterans Of D-Day

One of the president's honored guests – Jim Norene, a member of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne – didn't make it.

"Last night, after visiting this cemetery for one last time, he passed away in his sleep," Obama told a solemn crowd of vets stretching farther than most eyes can see. "Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return. But just as he did sixty-five years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here." [...]

"In the face of a merciless assault from these cliffs, you could have idled the boats offshore," Obama said. "Amid a barrage of tracer bullets that lit the night sky, you could have stayed in those planes. You could have hid in the hedgerows or waited behind the sea wall.

"At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found it within themselves to do the extraordinary. They fought for their moms and sweethearts back home, for the fellow warriors they came to know as brothers. And they fought out of a simple sense of duty – a duty sustained by the same ideals for which their countrymen had fought and bled for over two centuries."

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Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you to everyone who's helped to keep this nation safe and free.

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