Doc Webbers Recent Visit to Mt. Suribachi
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We reenacted the Iwo flag raising on top of Suribachi with members of the Young Marines and a few Iwo Vets during the visit.
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A
quote from the now deceased Major General Graves B. Erskine,
Commanding General of the Third Marine Division.
"There
is talk of great history, of the greatest fight in our history, of unheard-of
sacrifice and unheard-of courage.
These phrases are correct, but they are prematurely employed. The evidence
has not sufficiently been examined.
Even the words and phrases used by historians to describe the fight for Iwo
Jima,
when the piecemeal story of our dead comes to light, will be inadequate.
Victory
was never in doubt. Its cost was. What was in doubt, in all our minds, was
whether there would be any of us left to dedicate
our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out
the last Japanese gun and gunner.
Let
the world count the crosses. Let them count them over and over. Let us do
away with names, with ranks and rates
and unit designations, here. Do away with the terms-regular, reserve, veteran,
boot, old-timer, replacement.
They are empty, categorizing words which belong only in the adjutant's dull vocabulary.
Here lie only … Marines."
Iwo
Jima and the Future of the Marine Corps
