This week for our blog we watched the movie Flags of our Fathers. It started with an old man talking to a guy about the war. He talked about pictures that were taken during the war. Like the famous one with all the soldiers planting the flag in the ground. They believed it could potentially win the war for them. It showed this family that got the paper and realized that their son, Harlan, was in the picture. It went back to when Harlan had just joined the army and gotten in the war. It showed him and the groups getting on boats and heading to take over Iwo jima. After many days of bombing everything on the island was dead. It showed them all on the ships watching all the gun boats bomb the island. It showed the Americans getting off boats and getting on the islands and the Japanese were coming out of little holes with guns and shooting so it was really hard for the Americans to find them. All the people that were in the picture got to come back to America to help get money with the picture to create weapons and stuff so they could defeat the Japanese. They said this picture gave the Americans hope that they were going to win the war seeing the soldiers placing the flag. It showed these soldiers traveling around and making public appearances.
It kept showing the island after they invaded it and took all the fire when they put two flags up. The first one was the fake one for show or whatever and the second one was the one that was meant to stay. It was the one in the famous picture. It took the six men to lift it. They were upset cause they couldn’t see their faces. They had a big ceremony for the three guys that were still alive that were in the picture in a big stadium. They had to climb up a fake rock and place a flag in front of thousands of people.
The three that went on the tour all tried to take offers given to them when they were on the tour but they didn’t get any of the jobs. One was a janitor for the rest of his life. The other went to jail and basically walked around for a long time to let Harlans father know that his son was in the picture. Te Indian soon died and they didn’t know from what cause but they said it was from exposure.
At the end of the movie it showed the soldiers swimming in the ocean on the island. They were acting pretty chill.
I thought this movie was ok. It showed some of the reality of what went on in this battle. The Japanese in little bunkers and holes killed themselves after the Americans took over because it was considered more honorable to their country to commit suicide than to surrender to the enemy. They were swallowing grenades or holding them in their stomach then it would blow up and the Americans found them sitting in little caves with their guts hanging out. I really thought this showed some of how bad and violent the war here was. The island was basically all ashes. Everything on the island was dead. The Americans had been bombing the island for days. I thought it was kind of cool how I learned about some of the history of the statue that shows the soldiers placing the heavy flag. I also learned that a lot of people lost their partners and friends on this island. There were a lot of Japanese wholes and tunnels. It was also kind of interesting how the Japanese soldiers hid in those little holes and were completely built into the island. It makes me wonder how long it took to create all the tunnels. Overall I thought it was a pretty good movie but I probably wouldn’t watch it again.
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