[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 34 (Thursday, February 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2168-H2174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2310
                            MORE ON IWO JIMA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Largent). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] 
is recognized for 50 minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, it is awfully difficult to capture in a few 
minutes the essence of the history of the United States through its 
United States Marine Corps on such a day as this 23d of February 1995. 
I consider this day a second birthday for me.
  Before my colleagues leave the floor, I will show them why.
  I will address it directly to you, Mr. Speaker, because I believe you 
are a role model for young people around this country as are the four 
gentlemen that spoke a little while ago, African Americans, all proud 
citizens, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, 
discussing things from their hearts as they see it. And my second term 
colleague, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] and the two other 
freshman Members, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant] and the 
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Christensen], who spoke, also role models.
  But the reason today is special for me and why I began on the 15th 
anniversary of Iwo Jima to begin to research it is on February 23, 
1960, I was ferrying, as a National Guard pilot, my 6 years of active 
duty were behind me, an Air Force F-86 Sabrejet to be retired to the 
boneyard in Davis-Mothon in Arizona. So I had no water survival 
equipment. The plane flamed out over the San Fernando Valley. I took it 
out over the water to try and air-start, got it started and it flamed 
out again. And then I wanted to punch off these long-range refueling 
tanks that were to get me to Arizona.
  When I punched them off, only one came off so I had a 200-gallon tank 
at 6\1/2\ pounds each gallon. That was a 1300-pound anvil under one 
wing. I tried to get in Point Magu. And in those days, you were 
supposed to punch off your canopy. Now you keep it on for a helicopter 
to foam you in case of fire. I punched off the canopy. I had not flown 
in 73 days. The plane had not flown in 5 months. It was the hangar 
queen, last one off the field.
  I was available, because I was what was called a ``Guard bum'' going 
from job to job, dreaming about going to Congress, dreaming about doing 
lots of things
 in life and doing lots of different jobs with 4 kids and hopefully 
more to come.

  And I saw that field. And as the dirt and dust came up off the floor 
of the aircraft when the canopy went off and a pop stickle went flying 
by. Both my eyes were closed from grit. I got one open and I could see 
the headline: ``Pilot on Last Flight Dies with Last Jet out of San 
Francisco-Van Nuys.'' So I turned out toward the water. I was going to 
punch out along the beach. I decided the plane would jerk from the 
ejection and of course go inland and hit an orphanage and kill children 
and nuns. So I turned it out to sea. I intended still to come down in 
the surf, and I landed 6 miles out in the ocean. No Mae West, no raft, 
no survival equipment, and began to instantly drown.
  I did not get this helmet off. I had scratches on my face trying to 
unsnap a simple snap that comes off that easily tonight. But I could 
not get the helmet off. Got my gloves, jacket off. That was it. Could 
not get my boots off and began to roll under the water every time I 
tried to get my knotted laces off. And I had called on Guard emergency 
channel communication with no Navy or Air Force at Oxnard Air Force 
Base. And the helicopter was scrambled that had been assigned to duty 
that very morning for the first time in history, 1 hour before my 
ejection. It is still there today, 35 years later on the 23rd of 
February. And the helicopter came out, coldest day of the year, wind, 
high waves, whitecaps everywhere. And he saw this 2-inch white stripe 
on this red helmet, a whitecap that would not go away. And he told the 
one enlisted man in the back, keep your eye on it. Circling down, this 
little 2-man helicopter, and this ensign saw the whitecap disappear. 
That was me drowning.
  I slipped below the water. And all of my colleagues here tonight are 
Christian gentleman and they will understand that I am not being corny. 
This is true.
  I said goodbye to my wife and four kids. I prepared to meet God. I 
was so nervous and embarrassed that I was flippant, because I literally 
said in my mind, Jesus, here I come, ready or not, and slipped beneath 
the water. I remembered a story I had read on drowning on someone that 
had been plunked out of the bottom of a pool. I said, the water is 
warmer than I am. I am taking in gulps. It is painless, and I thought 
about my wife hanging up the laundry. Again, corny but true, that is 
just what she was doing because that is what she did that time in the 
morning in the backyard. I pictured her being alone with four kids, and 
I said, I cannot give up. I have to try one more time.
  It seemed hopeless, but I kicked to the surface and I came up. Here 
was this Navy helicopter, and he dropped a harness.
  I was begging the guy, yelling, I could taste blood from scratching 
my throat to jump in. I put my arm in the harness, and he jerked me 
about 10 feet up in the air, and I fell back under the water down, 5, 
6, 8 feet. I figured I was gone again.
  I came up and I said, well, this is ridiculous. I grabbed the 
harness, pushed it away from me and told him to level off, waited a few 
moments. And then I put my two arms into it and he, never having 
rescued anybody, immediately took off for the base and went up to 1,500 
feet, traffic pattern altitude. Of course, that is the World Trade 
Tower, the Empire State Building is only 1250. And I cannot even feel 
my muscles. I am in early hyperthermia holding it just against me like 
this.
  I did not want to go under the water and come up and hang on the 
harness.
  Slowly he brings me up inside. And when this enlisted man grabbed my 
arm, I begged him not to touch me until he closed this little trap door 
in the belly of the helicopter. When we got back to the base, he said, 
corny but true, that I was being circled by two or three huge sharks. 
They had lost four men to sharks in a Navy boat the week before.
  That is one of the reasons they put the helicopter on rescue duty. 
``I didn't think we would beat the sharks to you.''
  February 23 became my birthday. It was the 15th anniversary of Iwo 
Jima, and I went to the history book to see what happened on that day. 
It is interesting how God lets history be attracted to some days.
  And this is the day the siege began at the Alamo. I like that. It was 
the day that Zachary Taylor, to be President someday, although very 
briefly, died in office at the beginning of his second year, defeated 
General Santa Ana at the battle of Buena Vista in Mexico. That was 11 
years after Santa Ana had tortured and killed every survivor at the 
Alamo, including men who served in this Chamber like Davy Crockett.
  And then I saw that it was the day that President-elect Lincoln snuck 
into town because he had secretly avoided an assassination plot that 
had been foiled in Baltimore by Pinkerton Guards. He was getting ready 
to be sworn in. It was March 5 in those days, right up till Roosevelt's 
third term.
  Then I saw that it was the date that the Japanese shelled the oil 
refineries in Santa Barbara, 1942, three years before Iwo Jima. And how 
my mother had panicked in Manhattan and called her sister and my uncle, 
the Tinman on the Wizard of Oz, because all L.A. was 
[[Page H2169]]  under a big alert from the Japanese attacking us. How 
things changed in two years.
  And then I saw Iwo Jima. And it jumped at me, and I began to research 
this battle and the death toll for the United States Marine Corps, 
their worst battle ever.
  The Marine Corps had a little reception down in the bottom of the 
Rayburn Building. They give us these little cups. It will be in my 
Bronco for a long time with that ``Semper Fi'' staring at me.
  The Marine Corps is one of our beloved, the smallest of our services, 
but a beloved service because they have had some of our toughest 
conflicts.
  What is not known is that next month in Okinawa, where more Marines 
died but basically in an Army battle, we lost more men than we lost in 
Iwo Jima.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from St. Louis, MO [Mr. 
Talent].
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  I have always been fascinated by the story, and really, the hair on 
the back of my neck went up when you told that story. I am certainly 
very glad, and I think the country has been very well-served, that a 
sovereign who has always guided this Nation's fortunes chose to pull 
you out of that water at that point.
  The gentleman said something. I have been listening to the whole 
story. I just had to ask the gentleman, did you say that your uncle was 
the Tinman on the Wizard of Oz?
  Mr. DORNAN. Born and bred in Roxsbury, Massachusetts, Boston 
Democrat, who in the 1940's, with George Murphy and Ronald Reagan, 
changed his loyalty to the Republican Party and died in 1979 in St. 
John's Hospital, same floor as John Wayne, who died 4 days later. They 
were good Republicans, you bet.

                              {time}  2320

  Mr. TALENT. I thank the gentleman, for that is one of my favorite 
movies from certainly my favorite year of motion pictures.
  Mr. DORNAN. It was the best year.
  Mr. TALENT. It really was. I do not mean to interrupt the gentleman's 
story, but I really had to ask. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. DORNAN. He told me a story about how the Japanese this night 53 
years ago shelled those oil refineries in Santa Barbara, how they hid 
under the dining room table in their house on Roxbury Drive in Beverly 
Hills and how it really was a massive alert and a lot of people were 
hurt, I think a couple killed, by falling anti-aircraft fire because 
there were no Japanese planes over Los Angeles.
  Mr. TALENT. I was not aware that the Japanese had ever shelled the 
mainland.
  Mr. DORNAN. They had. They had struck our mainland on this very day 
53 years ago. And Jack Haley like his friend Fred Allen who I used to 
call ``Uncle'' until I found out later there was no blood, but all of 
that show business community then all started to go overseas. My uncle 
went to Italy and
 North Africa. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, I grew up with their children. 
They served in their 30's and 40's. After all, Ronald Reagan was 31 
years of age with two children and very bad eyesight, he turned 31 a 
month after Pearl Harbor. Well, February 6, two months.

  We still hear him attacked, and I remember Clinton in speaking to the 
American Legion said that Ronald Reagan spent more time making 
``Hellcats of the Navy'' than he had served in the military. No, he 
wore the uniform before the war for two years as a cavalry officer in 
the California Guard, transferred to the Army Air Corps, then the Army 
Air Force, and served throughout the war in his mid 30's as did John 
Wayne making either training films or motivational films like in 
Wayne's case, the ``Sands of Iwo Jima,'' as Sergeant Striker. That is 
probably his best known role.
  Yes, it is fun to have an uncle who has become a legend.
  Mr. TALENT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. DORNAN. The Marine Corps picture at Iwo Jima has also become a 
legend. It is an icon for the Corps.
  I am going to see in just a few brief short minutes for those people, 
Mr. Speaker, who are channel surfing tonight, sometimes we say 
1,300,000 watching, but after an excellent discussion on tort reform 
and it was fascinating, but you have to pay attention, because we are 
changing history here these first 50 some days of 100, and before that, 
a discussion that had its points on affirmative action and level 
playing field, but good men of conscience and women of different 
conscience coming to different solutions.
  This is something that I do because President Reagan ordered me to do 
it, personally, on several occasions, once when I was in a room with 
him, alone with Nancy and Ronald Reagan when he was declared the winner 
in the New Hampshire primary. I was the only one there with the 
Reagans. I thought, what a moment of history, flashing, I think it was 
ABC, Ronald Reagan the winner. He had beaten a terrific World War II 
hero, boby mangled 50 years ago on April 14 of this year, Bob Dole, and 
it was in that race he had beaten, really George Bush was the finalist 
going into New Hampshire, he had beaten Ronald Reagan big time in Ohio 
with the help of a state coordinator friend of mine Floyd Brown.
  I looked at President Reagan, he said, I can't believe this, it's 
like a dream, that I'm going to maybe go on to win and be part of 
American history. In Reagan's good-bye speech on January 11, and I 
meant to have that here and put it in the Record, his verbatim words, 
he said words to the effect in his good-bye 9 days before George Bush 
was inaugurated, our 40th President said, in sort of putting down his 
text, although it was the way he was using the teleprompters, he said, 
I want to talk to the children of America. I want you to study the 
history of this country. And he mentioned D-Day. I believe, I am not 
sure, he mentioned Iwo Jima. He mentioned a World War I battle. He 
mentioned battles in our revolutionary period.
  I just visited Lexington Green on the 19th of this month, a few days 
ago, a stirring place. I was shocked to see that an African-American, 
Crispus Attucks, who died on Lexington Green, the 9th, killed in 
action, this man is not on the memorial with the other great names, 
John Brown and Robert Monroe. I remember Reagan saying in his good-buy 
speech, ``Young people, if your parents at the kitchen table don't 
teach you about those who have gone before you and gave their blood to 
build this great country of ours, I give you permission to get angry at 
your parents.'' And by extension I am sure he meant the teachers. We 
are not teaching the history of this Nation.
  And how many college campuses today? This is a school day, spring 
semester. How many high school campuses in America? How many grade 
schools? This happened when I was in the seventh grade, and we were 
hungry to get the news reports to learn about young men just a few 
years older then us dying, and not just men. At this reception tonight 
where I got this cup and this beautiful calendar, two-sided poster, 
Paul McHale, a Desert Storm marine veteran, one of our colleagues, had 
brought in the best film, black and white and color I had ever seen, on 
Iwo Jima, and here were nurses on the bloody beaches, Yellow Beach, Red 
Beach, Green Beach, on the beaches holding these dying men in their 
arms. They had been flown in from Guam on C-47 ``Cooney Birds'' and 
were flying these terribly wounded men on a long plane flight back to 
Guam for hours. Many of the men died on planes or died in the hospitals 
in Guam, and here is this nurse on film saying that she never felt an 
affection for these young men, like they were her children, or young 
brothers, until she had children of her own. I found out tonight we 
lost 93 doctors. Doctors. That is how
 many doctors. Imagine how many we must have had mixed among the men to 
have 23 killed. We lost over 100, I think 127 paramedics. I did not 
learn that until this evening, at this Marine reception in the Rayburn 
Building. In every category, the death toll was tremendous. It said 
that most of the people died a violent death.

  I asked my West Pointer, Bill Fallon, who is my legislative assistant 
for defense affairs, I said, Bill, for obvious reasons, get me someone 
from Arkansas who won the Medal of Honor on that sulfuric, death-
smelling, cordite-smelling hell on earth, and he picks one out from 
Arkansas, representative of all the other 27, 14 of the 27 Medal of 
Honor winners died. One of them was 
[[Page H2170]]  sitting up in that gallery who was only 17 years and 6 
days when he threw himself on a grenade and pulled another one under 
him on February 20, day 2. The flag went on up day 5 of a 36-day battle 
and all the records that I am reading say they expected it to be a 
cakewalk and over in 4 days. But not General ``Howlin'' Smith. He said 
this is going to be the worst battle in Marine Corps history, and he 
was right. ``Howlin'' Smith.
  Here is Wilson D. Watson, Wilson Douglas Watson. Private. Just a 
private. But 24 years old. And these men looked like they were 30 at 
24, in every theater of the world, because they were men in those days 
at 18 and 19.
  Here I recall Clinton on Ted Koppel on Lincoln's birthday 1992 
telling Koppel, I was only a boy of 23 when I was in London trying to 
avoid serving. A boy at 23? How come Lucas up there was a man 6 days 
past his 17th birthday?
  But here is what Wilson Watson did. Joined in Arkansas, born 18 
February 1921. Actually he was born, I see here, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. 
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above 
and beyond the call of duty as an automatic rifleman, serving with the 
Second Battalion, 9th Marines, and this stunned me when I read this 
sitting here because I went out in the field for 3 days with the Marine 
Corps in Vietnam, May 20 through 23, 1966, with the Second Battalion of 
the 9th Marines, Echo Company, I recall.
  It does not say his company here. And the young commander that 
allowed me to go in on a Sparrow Hawk designed by a colleague of ours 
who I served with here for 8 years. He is watching. I called him in 
Virginia and told him to watch, Ben Blaz, one of the most distinguished 
people I have ever served with in this Chamber. Brigadier General 
Benjamin Blaz was the commander of the 9th Marines and we did not 
discover that until we were sitting back here about 3 rows talking one 
day and I told him about my days of combat with the Marines as a 
volunteer reporter from a small Santa Monica newspaper, and he said, 
Bob, in that distinguished way of his, I was the commander of the 9th 
Marines. This young Medal of Honor winner was with the 9th Marines in a 
different time.
  By the way, Mr. Speaker, sometimes the reach of this House is 
amazing. The young captain who took me out with his unit and let me on 
that H-34 Sparrow Hawk helicopter to go into a village that was 
surrounded, designed, I repeat, by Ben Blaz, his name was something 
like Jerry Horrick, Horricks, he lost his legs. Two months later, by 
chance, I saw it in the Saturday Evening Post, and I asked him, because 
I saw his wings, or we got to talking about his flying, what was an F-8 
Crusader pilot doing as a ground Marine company commander?
  And he said, ``I want to be Commandant someday and I want to go all 
the way in my career.'' He said, ``Flying is important, giving air 
cover to these kids is important, but I figured if you're going to make 
it to the top, you better be a ground Marine and see what the gunfire's 
like at the grass level.''
                              {time}  2330

  There he was, and 2 months later he lost his legs. I believe he was 
from Glendale. If anybody, Mr. Speaker, knows Jerry Horrick, something 
like that, please write me. I would love to see how he is doing.
  Anyway, young Wilson Watson, second battalion 9th Marines, 3d Marine 
Division, the same division in Vietnam, during action against the enemy 
forces on Iwo Jima. By the way, all of those islands are volcanic 
islands. For action over 2 days, the 26th and 27th of February 1945.

       With his squad abruptly halted by intense fire from enemy 
     fortifications in the high rocky ridges and crags commanding 
     the line of advance, Pvt. Watson boldly rushed 1 pillbox and 
     fired into the embrasure with his weapon, keeping the enemy 
     pinned down singlehandedly until he was in a position to hurl 
     in a grenade, and then running to the rear of the emplacement 
     to destroy the retreating Japanese and enable his platoon to 
     take its objective. Again pinned down at the foot of a small 
     hill, he dauntlessly scaled the jagged incline under fierce 
     mortar and machinegun barrages and, with his assistant BAR 
     man, charged the crest of the hill, firing from his hip.

  This is where John Wayne learned his style.

       Fighting ferociously against Japanese troops attacking with 
     grenades and knee mortars from the reverse slope, he stood 
     fearlessly erect in his exposed position to cover the hostile 
     entrenchments and held the hill under savage fire for 15 
     minutes, killing 60 Japanese before his ammunition was 
     exhausted and his platoon was able to join him. His 
     courageous initiative and valiant fighting spirit against 
     devastating odds were directly responsible for the continued 
     advance of his platoon, and his inspiring leadership 
     throughout this bitterly fought action reflects the highest 
     credit upon Pvt. Watson and the U.S. Naval Service.

  I do not know who wrote this, Mr. Speaker, but I believe it should 
say the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps. Naval services does not 
sound impactful enough at the end.
  Wilson Watson lived. I do not know if he is still alive 50 years 
later. Someone will probably write and tell me.
  This seems so far way, 50 years, and yet it is not, Mr. Speaker. Last 
year I met Joe Rosenthal, the only survivor of the scene that day who 
took that picture. He was in the Rayburn Building in room 2117, the 
anteroom of the Armed Services room, and I called the photographer over 
and any Member lucky enough to be passing through the anteroom at that 
moment got a picture with Joe Rosenthal against a big, beautiful oil 
painting that is the prominent feature, along with the capstand taken 
up from the harbor of Havana that literally came off of the U.S.S. 
Maine that was sunk in that harbor in 1898, those are the two main 
objects of yes, military art, and posed with Joe. He is healthy, and 
all of the other six men at that second flag-raising, because there was 
a smaller flag raised first. What a touch in history to hold Joe's hand 
in front of that magnificent picture. As some of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle when Sonny Montgomery began a series of very 
touching 5-minute speeches pointed out, if you want to go to your 
library, this book, ``Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor,'' by Bill Ross, who I 
learned tonight passed on, which was published in 1983, and this is a 
dog-eared copy from one of our majors in the liaison office. This book 
I hope he will let me use when I fly to Iwo Jima at the end of next 
month for the commemorative of this 6-day battle. I flew around this 
island in an old seaplane flying to Vietnam, I have looked at it from 
the air at high altitude, and I do not believe we should have ever 
given it back to the Japanese. It is not used for anything now. It is 
8-1/2 square miles of junk real estate is the way one hero described 
it.
  I would like to read, Mr. Speaker, a letter written by a veteran just 
a few years ago in 1987 sitting on top of the edge of Mount Suribachi, 
writing it to a friend. And it is Col. John W. Ripley, one of the young 
officers in that horrendous battle, and he made his way back, his solo 
pilgrimage to this bloody site of so much American heroism, and he 
writes to his friend, Ross McKenzie, I repeat, from the top of Mount 
Suribachi, 556-foot mountain, the only high
 ground really on this volcanic rock. This is an actual extinct 
volcano, and all of the lava from centuries of erupting that poured in 
a northwesterly direction giving it a big pork chop shape, and as I 
said, 8\1/2\ miles.

  Colonel Ripley says:

       Dear Ross, From this most unlikely spot I am inspired to 
     write you for reasons I can't fully explain. Certainly you 
     have received no other letters from here I would wager, and 
     you may find this interesting. It's the middle of the night--
     cold, windy, uncomfortable & profoundly moving.

  He is writing by flashlight. ``I'm looking down on a tiny island 3 
miles wide and 5 miles long. Down there, and here where I'm writing by 
flashlight,'' a lot of these figures are a little off, so I corrected 
them, and I hope he does not mind if he is listening, where 5,951 
marines died. There were another 870-some Navy men, Air Force men, air 
crews, 220-some men died on the U.S.S. Bismark Sea which was sunk by a 
Japanese kamikaze, Coast Guard men bringing the landing craft in 
earlier, Navy men of all types. Six thousand eight hundred twenty-one 
is the precise figure of everyone.

       The mountain is Suribachi, the island, Iwo Jima. Of the 
     hundreds of thousands of words written about this place, 
     nothing comes close to describing its starkness, its 
     inestimable cost and now, sadly, the poverty of its 
     abandonment.
       The entire island is a shrine, mostly Japanese, but a few 
     American--only a few. Americans don't seem to care about such 
     things when, as is the case here, it's inconvenient. 
     [[Page H2171]]  And yet this island, its name and most 
     especially this very spot where I sit--where the flag was 
     raised--is immortalized in our national consciousness for as 
     long as there is an America.

  ``The debris and detritus of war remain even after nearly 43 years. 
Rusty vehicle hulks, wrecked boats, sunken ships, canteens, mess kits, 
thousands of rounds of corroded ammunition, blockhouses, pillboxes, 
trenches, abandoned airfields, large naval shore guns, artillery, etc. 
And beneath my feet remains of--'' he says 22. It is actually 19,000 
dead Japanese. We did take 1,083 POW's out of a garrison of over 20. He 
says, ``We hated them then. There is more respect now, defenders, brave 
men who die at their post.
  ``Rupert Brooke,'' an English poet, ``said it perfectly; ``Here, in 
some small corner of a forgotten field, will be forever England.'' And 
this brutally stinking sulfuric rock depressing to see, demoralizing as 
it has lost its once vital importance and our nation's once great 
concern, will be forever America. It will be forever in the memory of 
those 75,000 Marines who fought here.''
  I learned yesterday from Commandant Mundy, addressing at the 
beginning of the year, as is the tradition in the Armed Services 
Committee where he said that of the 27 Marine battalion commanders, and
 we only have 24 now, Mr. Speaker, 24 in the whole Marine Corps 
battalions, 27 fought in combat there, and 18 of those battalion 
commanders fell. Some of them did survive, but were taken off the 
island badly wounded, and more than a third died.

  He said:

       Of the 75,000 Marines who fought here suffered wounds here 
     and the 5800 who gave their blood and lives to its black 
     soil. Again Rupert Brooke. ``In that rich earth, a richer 
     dust concealed. Their hopes, their happiness, their dreams 
     ended here. And if we fail to honor them in our memory and 
     our prayers, we should be damned to hell for such failure.''

                              {time}  2340

  ```I brought a small team here, Ross, to survey the island for future 
exercise use. The Japanese would prefer that we did not exercise here, 
but that will be over my dead body.'' I do not know, Mr. Speaker, who 
won this debate 7 years ago.

       I find it hard to believe and impossible to accept that our 
     Government gave this island back to the Japanese. It is as if 
     we gave them Gettysburg or Arlington National Cemetery. 
     Americans died here in such numbers that in 9\1/2\ months the 
     toll here would have equaled, if it had lasted 9\1/2\ months, 
     would have equaled the entire 10-11 years of the Vietnam 
     struggle. The Marine Corps should never lose its right to 
     exercise here, and I am proud of having something to do with 
     assuring that it will be so. Yours, I, John, John Ripley, 
     Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired.

  Mr. Speaker, it is amazing how we will pass people on the street and 
not know what they have done for their country, just a senior gentleman 
or lady walking by, we say hello or nod. We do not know that they laid 
their life on the altar of liberty, of freedom, sometimes in foreign 
countries far away, and went on
 with their lives with the memories of all the friends of their youth 
who did not make it.

  Gene Rider in Navy Times wrote a column a few days ago, well, 
actually it is dated a few days from now, February 27, so it is the 
current Navy Times, and I think it sums it up better than anything I 
have read. I would like to read a few paragraphs from it, Mr. Speaker. 
This is Gene Ryder. I hope he is listening.
  He is a CBS Radio correspondent who lives in San Diego, and if he has 
a friend listening, call Gene to hear his words going out to Guam where 
our day begins, Alaska, and the Virgin Islands and all 50 States, 
thanks to the wonder of C-SPAN.
  He writes:

       Iwo Jima, valor, death, and a raised flag. The high command 
     expected Iwo Jima to be a 4-day piece of cake for the 42,000 
     Marines of the 4th and 5th Divisions. But Lieutenant General 
     Howland M. ``Howling Mad'' Smith warned it would be the most 
     grueling battle in the Corps' history. He was the senior 
     Marine officer in the entire Pacific, but he was outranked. 
     In the first 18 hours alone, 2,312 men had fallen.

  That is double D-Day, Mr. Speaker. ``The 3d Division, brought along 
as a floating reserve,'' that is our division that fought for a decade 
in Vietnam in the I Corps around Da Nang, ``wasn't expected to be 
needed. It was committed February 20, day 2,'' and the first unit 
landed on day 3, the 21st. ``As planned, 30,000 men landed on day 1. 
Most massed on the beachhead area.'' I do look forward to walking these 
beaches next month, Mr. Speaker.
  ``Defense perimeters had not been fully formed, because the tanks 
lost traction in the volcanic ash. Heavy artillery landing was delayed 
by heavy surf.'' I witnessed that surf in these films this evening, Mr. 
Speaker, waves coming over giant Amtraks and landing vehicles, and they 
completely disappeared under as heavy a surf as I have ever seen along 
the California coast.
  He said, ``The congestion on the beach had grown into a monumental 
snarl of damaged tanks, landing crafts, smashed equipment. The Japanese 
are holding their fire. They had their fields of fire perfectly worked 
out.'' One of our Marine colonels told me tonight they had drilled 
holes in the volcanic rock where they inserted mortar tubes so you 
could come along and drop a tube, and it was perfectly positioned to 
pick out certain people on the beach. You could move on after you 
dropped the mortar shell into its barrel.
  He said;

       Things started to improve on the beach, false feeling of 
     security. The heavy artillery landed. Twenty-five miles 
     offshore, 60 Japanese kamikaze planes in several waves 
     swooped in to hit the smaller escort carriers. Detected early 
     on, many were shot down. Two slammed into one of our big 
     supercarriers, the Saratoga that had been battling since 1942 
     all across the Pacific, killing 128 on the Saratoga, wounding 
     another almost 200. Another kamikaze crashed midship on the 
     Bismarck Sea. Bombs went off, and engulfed in great flames, 
     the carrier sank quickly, 812 sailors into the icy water, 218 
     dying.

  Iwo Jima, ``Sulfur Island,'' gateway to Japan, populated by 21,000 
subterranean troops, and I saw an eyewitness soldier tonight who said 
they were not on the island, they were in the island.
  There were caves all the way through and tunnels. ``The almost 
invisible smog of smoky drizzle that smelled of cordite and death and 
sulfur; the Japanese commander, Lt. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, he knew he 
could not win, but he and his troops were dedicated to death.''
  Mr. Speaker, think, as I read these words, of this inane, stupid 
argument of how we were going to present the B-29 fuselage of the Enola 
Gay that dropped the first atom bomb on August 6 at though we were in 
some kind of racist crusade against the Japanese islands. This battle, 
and the battle 50 years ago next month in Okinawa, just give a tiny 
feeling of the major death toll that we would have suffered.
  I learned last week that we are awarding Purple Hearts today in 
Somalia, Grenada, Panama, Purple Hearts have gone to several men 
putting their lives on the line in Haiti to restore order to the 
pathetic little island, and these Purple Hearts were struck in 1945, 
this year 50 years ago, and we are still drawing from that supply, 
because these were from a lot ordered in thousands that we thought we 
would be giving out in the invasion of Japan and the major islands, and 
the death toll and wounding toll that we would take there. It is one of 
the amazing pieces of small information about current Purple Hearts and 
how many are still stored away.
  General Kuribayashi, graduated from their military college, their 
West Point, in 1914, and he knew that his victory would be in showing 
Marines what lay in store for them when they invaded Japan and in 
denying
 them the emergency airfield they needed for crippled B-29 bombers at 
the halfway point of the Guam-Saipan to Tokyo air express.

  At this point, let me add something, Mr. Speaker. There should have 
been somebody here tonight whose life was saved by these sacrifices, a 
chairman, a brand-new chairman, after being here over 22 years, Ben 
Gilman of New York, who was a B-29 crewman, told me that his life was 
saved after Japanese fighters shot up his B-29 over the mainland of 
Honshu Island. He could not make it back to his base further south, 
Saipan, Tinian, or Guam. He recovered on Iwo Jima. He would have gone 
in the water like so many crewmen from his bomb wing there that died at 
sea, shark attacks, some of the worst shark-infested waters in the 
world.
  Witness what happened to the crew of the Indianapolis that delivered 
the first 
[[Page H2172]]  atom bomb to Tinian. They sunk. They were not accounted 
for for 3 days, a terrible military ``Snafu'', and 500 of the 800 or 
900 that died in the water were torn apart by sharks.
  Ben Gilman told me he owes his life to taking Iwo Jima, which makes a 
good point. Did we have to take Iwo Jima? Would the Japanese or 
Germans, if their roles had been reversed, have taken Iwo Jima? They 
might not have. They would have told their pilots, ``Press on. If you 
do not make it, that is OK, we have got teenagers to take your place.''
  These thousands, these 6,821 marines and sailors and Army Air force 
men, Coast Guardsmen who died, they gave their lives in a direct trade 
at about four or five to one for the 27,000 men in the air crews and 
fighters and mostly B-29's that made it back to Iwo Jima, coming back 
shot up from all of those raids in March and April and May and June and 
July and through August 15, 1945 when the cessation of shooting came 
about looking forward to the treaty of surrender on the deck of the 
Missouri on September 2.
  So Ben Gilman is a living testament of somebody who would not be in 
this House if it had not been for this sacrifice and the atom bombs 
would not have brought an end to this horrible death toll on both 
sides. A million Japanese survived the war to have children and 
grandchildren that are alive in a dynamic nation and its economy today 
because we dropped those two bombs.
  I am happy to say, under the lead of Joe McDade from Pennsylvania 
here, and my hero in this House, our Gary Cooper, Sam Johnson of Texas, 
who I watched take on the head of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum 
and say, ``Would you have dropped the bomb, Doctor?'' And he says, ``I 
would have obeyed orders.'' He said, ``No; would you have dropped the 
bomb if you were Harry Truman?'' ``No; I would not.'' Sam held up that 
hand that has seen so much torture in Vietnam, he holds up the hand and 
looks at him and says, ``That is the difference between you and me. I 
would have dropped the bomb.''
                              {time}  1150

  That is our Texan, Sam Johnson of Dallas. We won that battle. I 
continue reading from Gene Rider's Navy Times story.
  Big guns silent, tanks mired in mud, no spotting airplanes on day 
four, but it seemed eerily quiet. Perfect day for infantry. Leaning 
into near gale force gusts and driving sheets of rain, Marines begin 
probing the steep bouldered slopes of Suribachi, flame throwers, 
demolition charges, grenades, and men winning the Medal of Honor, 
destroyed pill boxes and bunkers as our patrols drove upward. There 
were sporadic nasty skirmishes and casualties. By nightfall it was 
apparent that only a few of the 2,000 Japanese packed into the caves on 
that mountain on the southwest corner of the island in all those 
labyrinths at several levels, they remained alive in there.
  The weather on day 5, different. Greatly improved. Lt. Colonel 
Chandler Johnson, I don't know if he is still alive, commander of the 
Second Battalion, 28th Regiment, had seen the totals through day three. 
4,574 of his men killed or wounded. In the 5th Division, 2,057 men 
killed or wounded. A great many were from his own battalion. He decided 
they needed a topping out party, a flag on top of Suribachi. He called 
together Lt. Harold Schrier, a route to follow up the steep slopes he 
said. Take this folded flag, a smaller one, and put this on top of the 
hill.
  See how men will die for a flag? And we debated all night a few years 
ago in this well, Duncan Hunter led the debate, all night long to pass 
a simple law that you cannot burn Old Glory in front of veterans like 
these, some of them in wheelchairs. And we lost that debate. When we 
are through with our 100 days, maybe, just maybe, we will revisit 
whether or not you have a right to burn a flag in front of courageous 
men and those Army nurses and Marine nurses and Navy nurses, excuse me, 
that went in to help the Marine Corps.
  So he says put this flag, his simple order, put this on top of the 
hill. Preceded by a patrol that met no opposition, E Platoon, 40 men 
plus litter bearers, notice everywhere they went, they have litter 
bearers or doctors with them. I repeat, 820-some paramedics died with 
all the Marines fighting. How many times must the word ``medic'' have 
pierced the din of artillery and machine gun and flame thrower fire 
there.
  He said with their litter bearers they go up. Slowly they make it up 
single file the steep slope to the crest. Rifles and grenades ready. 
Some of the men scour the crater's debris, and there is a huge crater 
there. They found a pipe. They lashed the colors to it, and at 10:31 
a.m. the Stars and Stripes went up and whipped in the blustery wind.
  Sergeant Lou Lowery took pictures for ``Leatherneck,'' a great 
magazine 50 years later. And a Japanese suddenly leapt up from a cave, 
fired, and just barely missed Low Lowery. A Marine gunned him down.
  Marines handily won a skirmish that developed using rifles and 
grenades. It wasn't planned. James Forrestal, the Secretary of the 
Navy, and what a handsome guy, he turned out to be 2 years later our 
first Secretary of Defense. I thought looking at the film today, they 
had pictures of him on the deck of the command ship, the El Dorado, but 
he was actually on the beach already, on Green Beach, and he is 
standing beside Gen. Howling Smith, where 23 Marines were killed right 
in that area within that very hour, and they watched that flag unfurl. 
It was a very emotional moment. Our Marines that were in our
 liaison department particularly asked me to point out what James V. 
Forrestal said. He set that handsome square jaw of his and he said 
``General Howling,'' pointing up to the flag on Suribachi, the earlier 
smaller flag, ``this means a Marine Corps for 500 years.'' Howling Mad 
then choked up.

  They soon returned to the El Dorado command ship two miles offshore. 
CBS asked for recorded interviews. And General Smith ordered Sgt. 
Ernest Thomas, one of the flag raisers, to come on board for the 
interview. He was the very senior sergeant. Afterwards Thomas had one 
of the thrills of his life. A hot bath, his first in days, and a hot 
meal, and he couldn't wait yet to get back to his outfit.
  A few days later he died on Iwo Jima. He gave up his life. That was 
his last hot shower, his last hot meal. The banner atop Suribachi was a 
lift for the Marines in the foxholes down in all the lower part of the 
island. The sailors on the beach and on the ships, they saw it.
  This is captured on film, I just saw it a few hours ago, Mr. Speaker, 
exuberant yells, ships blasting whistles, ships' bells ringing, horns 
rang out. Lt. Col. Chandler Johnson was jubilant. He had to have that 
flag as a souvenir for his battalion which had paid such a price for 
its role in taking the mountain. He sent a runner to scrounge up 
another flag.
  The officer on one of the landing ship tanks at the beach broke out 
the ship's ceremonial flag. It was twice as large and delivered to the 
summit about an hour later. About then, a five foot five bespectacled 
33-year-old civilian in Marine dungarees reached the top with a pack 
full of photographic gear.
  He was joined by two Marine combat photographers. They were feeling 
put out by having missed the flag raising. Of course, that five foot 
five, 33-year-old, now 83, was none other than Joe Rosenthal, San 
Francisco Associated Press.
  He saw the just delivered 4 by 8, a pretty big flag, that is the size 
I think I will replace my 5 by 7 with in front of my house here in 
Virginia, and that is what I will use in my house in Garden Grove. I am 
going to like that size the rest of my life, 4 by 8. He saw them tying 
the banner's lanyards around a long pipe about to be positioned for 
hoisting.
  Joe told me he had his back turned at this moment. He and sergeant 
Bill Genaust scurried 25 feet up. He is just loading, and just then six 
Marines struggled the unwieldy pipe upward, with that big flag starting 
to whip out in the stiff breeze. Joe told me he whipped around. Gene 
Rider has it here that he clicked his speedgraphic loaded with black 
and white film at the midpoint just at the right millisecond for this 
incredible, now an icon, historic photograph.
  Then Bob Campbell, another Marine photographer, shooting from a 
different angle, and in these wonderful commemorative books that the 
Marine Corps published, you see Bob Campbell's picture capturing the 
original 
[[Page H2173]]  smaller flag being brought down by Marines, still 
ducking from sniper fire, and the big one going up. What an incredible 
moment that symbolizes to all the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen 
fighting all around the world. What a tribute to our beautiful Old 
Glory.
  The Marines stood under the flag, looked across Iwo Jima, the view 
from 556 feet was much different from that scene from the foxholes and 
the caves and the Marines below. Keep in mind, there is 31 days of 
hellish fighting to continue. Five days of carnage
 and they owned a third of this 8\1/2\ square miles of junk.

  Rosenthal came down slowly from the top, made the rounds of the 
command posts and aid stations, and caught a ride on a press boat back 
out to the El Dorado. He wrote captions for his day's pictures and made 
sure they were in the press pouch for the courier seaplane, probably a 
Catalina, back to Guam. There they would be developed, checked by 
censors, radioed stateside by CINCPAC's high powered transmitters. He 
wasn't sure of what he made up there at the top, he didn't even get to 
see his work, and a day or so later the Associated Press radioed 
congratulations. And that turned out to be the defining event of his 
life.
  Casualties mounted as the carnage erupted into a new fury, and as the 
4th division on the eastern front, 3d division in the center and 5th 
division on the west hammered ahead with tanks, flame throwers, 
mortars, rockets, each day was heartbreak and it went on for 31 more 
days.
  I ask permission to put the rest of this in the Record and close with 
this in the final minute or so, Mr. Speaker.
  This battle is not over, keeping our country strong. And here is 
another article after Gene Rider's in the same Navy Times, if it had to 
be done all over again, how future Marines would take Iwo Jima in 
another way. They project their thinking, Chris Lawson, the Times staff 
writer, to 2010, and the star of this event is none other than the V-22 
``Osprey.'' On the ground it is the advanced armored amphibious 
vehicle, AAAU. These two systems are in doubt whether or not we are 
going to fully develop them for our great Corps. And it shows how this 
36-day battle would have been shortened by vertical envelopment and 
putting our troops behind all of the Japanese forces and how much loss 
of life could have been prevented in this terrible conflict.

                              {time}  0000

  I would like to submit this for the Record and close again with those 
words that have been said 10 times at least tonight, that uncommon 
valor was a common virtue that day, 27 Medals of Honor and the debt 
that Americans born ever since, were too young to serve, will never, 
ever be able to repay except by studying this history and passing it 
onto the young men and women of our country, as Ronald Reagan 
requested.
                [From the Navy Times, February 27, 1995]

                Iwo Jima: Valor, Death and a Raised Flag

                            (By Gene Rider)

       The high command expected Iwo Jima to be a four-day piece 
     of cake for the 42,000 Marines of the 4th and 5th divisions. 
     But Lt. Gen. Holland M. ``Howling Mad'' Smith warned it would 
     be the most grueling battle in the Corps' history. He was the 
     senior Marine officer in the Pacific, but was outranked.
       In the first 18 hours, 2,312 men had fallen. The 3rd 
     division, brought along as floating reserve, wasn't expected 
     to be needed. It was committed on Feb. 20 and first unit 
     landed on Day Three, Feb. 21.
       As planned, 30,000 men landed on Day One, most massed in 
     the beachhead area. Defense perimeters had not been fully 
     formed because tanks lost traction in volcanic ash. The heavy 
     artillery landing was delayed by a high surf and beach 
     congestion, which had grown into a monumental snarl, of 
     damaged tanks, landing craft and smashed equipment.
       Much of the enemy's firepower came from caves and 
     labyrinths of Mount Suribachi, the 556-foot-high dead volcano 
     overlooking our beachhead at the island's southern tip. Much 
     of our bombardment and air strikes were concentrated on 
     Suribachi and by Day Three it had been jolted to its core.
       Things were improving on the beach. Heavy artillery landed. 
     But 25 miles offshore, 60 planes in several waves of a 
     kamikaze mission swooped in to attack our escort carriers. 
     Detected early on, many were shot down. Two slammed into the 
     carrier Saratoga, killing 128 and wounding 192. Another 
     crashed amidship on the Bismarck Sea. Engulfed by great 
     flames, the carrier sank quickly and 812 sailors took to the 
     icy waters, 218 dying.
       Iwo Jima--Sulphur Island--gateway to Japan, populated by 
     21,000 subterranean troops, was almost invisible in a smog of 
     smoky drizzle that smelled of death, sulphur and cordite. The 
     Japanese commander, Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, knew he 
     couldn't win. But he and his troops were dedicated to death. 
     Their victory would be in showing Marines what lay in store 
     when they invaded Japan and in denying them the emergency 
     airfield they needed for crippled B-29 bombers at the halfway 
     point of the Guam-Saipan-to-Tokyo air expressway.
       Big guns silent, tanks mired in mud, no spotting planes, 
     dawn on Day Four seemed eerily quiet. It was a perfect day 
     for infantry. Leaning into near-gale-force gusts that drove 
     sheets of rain, Marines began probing the steep, bouldered 
     slopes of Suribachi. Flame throwers, demolition charges and 
     grenades destroyed pill boxes and bunkers as our patrols 
     drove upward. There were sporadic nasty skirmishes and 
     casualties. By nightfall, it was apparent that only a few of 
     the 2,000 Japanese packed into caves and labyrinths at 
     several levels remained.
       The weather on Day Five was greatly improved. Lt. Col. 
     Chandler Johnson, commander of the 2d Battalion, 28th 
     Regiment, had seen the totals through Day Three--4,574 men 
     killed or wounded. Of the 2,057 5th Division men killed or 
     wounded, a great many were from his battalion.
                         a `topping-out' party

       Johnson thought it was time for a ``topping-out'' party. 
     After giving Lt. Harold Schrier a route to follow up the 
     steep slopes, he handed him a folded flag and said: ``Put 
     this on the top of the hill.''
       Preceded by a patrol that met no opposition, E platoon--40 
     men plus litter bearers--slowly made its way in single file 
     up the steep slopes to the crest. Rifles and grenades ready, 
     some of the men scouted the crater's debris and found a pipe, 
     lashed the colors to it and at 10:31 a.m. the Stars and 
     Stripes whipped in the blustery wind.
       Sgt. Lou Lowrey took pictures for Leatherneck magazine 
     until a Japanese leaped up from a cave, fired and missed 
     Lowery. A Marine gunned down the Japanese. Marines handily 
     won a skirmish with rifles and grenades.
       It wasn't planned. James Forrestal, the secretary of the 
     Navy, who had boarded the command ship Eldorado at Guam with 
     Gen. Smith beside him, stood on Green Beach, where 23 Marines 
     had been killed within the hour, and watched the flag 
     unfurled.
       It was an emotional moment. Forrestal said, ``Holland, this 
     means a Marine Corps for 500 years.'' ``Howling Mad'' choked 
     up. They soon returned to the Eldorado two miles offshore, 
     where SBC recorded interviews for later broadcast. Smith 
     ordered Sgt. Ernest Thomas, one of the flag raisers, to come 
     for an interview. Afterward, Thomas had a bath and a hot meal 
     and couldn't wait to get back to his outfit. He gave his life 
     a few days later.
       The banner atop Suribachi was a lift for Marines in 
     foxholes, and sailors on the beach and on ships. Exuberant 
     yells, whistles, ships' bells and horns rang out.
       Lt. Col. Johnson was jubilant. He had to have that flag as 
     a souvenir for his battalion, which had paid such a price for 
     its role in taking Suribachi. He sent a runner to scrounge 
     for another flag. An officer on the tank landing ship at the 
     beach broke out the ship's ceremonial flag. It was twice as 
     large and was delivered to the summit about an hour later.
       About then, a 5-foot-5 bespectacled 33-year-old civilian in 
     Marine dungarees reached the top with a full pack of photo 
     gear. He was joined by two Marine combat photographers. They 
     were feeling put out by having missed the flag raising. Joe 
     Rosenthal, Associated Press out of San Francisco, saw the 
     just-delivered 4x8 banner's lanyards being put around a long 
     pipe about to be positioned for hoisting.
       He and Sgt. Bill Genault scurried out 25 feet just as six 
     Marines struggled the unwieldy pipe upward with the big flag 
     whipping in the stiff breeze. Joe clicked his Speed Graphic 
     loaded with black and white film at just the right 
     millisecond for an historic picture. Genault shot the same 
     scene in color movies until his film ran out. Pvt. Bob 
     Campbell, the other Marine photographer, was shooting from 
     another location and got a shot of the small flag being 
     lowered with the new flag going up.
       Marines stood under the flag and looked across Iwo Jima. 
     The view from 556 feet was much different from that seen from 
     foxholes, caves and ravines below. After five days of 
     carnage, they owned one-third of this 8\1/2\ square miles of 
     junk real estate and had yet to reach Day One's objective.
       Rosenthal came down slowly from the top, made the rounds of 
     command posts and aid stations and caught a ride on a press 
     boat to the Eldorado. He wrote captions for his day's 
     pictures and made sure they were in the press pouch for the 
     courier seaplane to Guam, where they'd be developed, checked 
     by censors and radioed stateside by CincPac's high-power 
     transmitters. He wasn't sure of what he'd made at the top. A 
     day or so later the Association Press radioed 
     congratulations.
                              The advance

       Casualties mounted as the carnage erupted into new fury as 
     the 4th Division on the eastern front, 3rd Division in the 
     center and 5th Division on the west hammered ahead with 
     [[Page H2174]]  tanks, flame throwers, heavy artillery and 
     offshore mortar and rocket boats. Each yard was heartbreak.
       By Day 14, the battle line was at Day Two's objective.
       That day, crippled over Tokyo, the B-29 Dinah Might, was 
     the first Superfort bomber to land on Iwo Jima while trying 
     to return to Guam. With the short, shell-shocked runway under 
     sporadic fire, the 65-ton bomber flopped down for a wild but 
     safe landing.
       A Doberman pinscher war dog led his handler's patrol to a 
     huge cave on the eastern coast where scores of Japanese had 
     lain dead for days in an overpowering stench. Seven Japanese 
     came out of a catacomb and surrendered.
       Day 24, March 14 at 9:30 a.m., as CincPac ordered, there 
     was a short ceremony near the base of Suribachi. Gen. Smith's 
     personnel officer, Col. David Stafford, read a proclamation 
     issued by Adm. Chester Nimitz from headquarters on Guam that 
     officially claimed victory and proclaimed Iwo Jima a U.S. 
     territory. A bugler sounded colors, our flag was hoisted, and 
     a color guard, Adm. Richmond K. Turner and Gen. Smith joined 
     each division commander--Maj. Gens. Graves B. Erskine, 
     Clifton B. Cates and Keller E. Rockey of the 3rd, 4th and 5th 
     divisions, respectively--in salutes.
       Dedications of three separate cemeteries followed. Bill 
     Ross, Marine correspondent wrote that as Rockey spoke at the 
     5th's cemetery, a bulldozer dug more burial trenches for 
     poncho-shrouded Marines laid out in long lines awaiting 
     burial and that a jeep drove up with several more bodies.
       Gen. Erskine spoke at the 3rd's cemetery. ``Victory was 
     never in doubt. Its cost was. What was in doubt was whether 
     there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery . . . 
     let the world count our crosses, over and over . . . let us 
     do away with ranks and ratings and designations . . . old 
     timers . . . replacements--here lie only Marines.''
       (In the mid-1950s the bodies of all Marines buried on Iwo 
     Jima were exhumed and returned to American soil.)
       Day 35, March 25, remnants of regiments 26, 27 and 28 
     wearily and warily slogged into Bloody Gorge on the northwest 
     tip of Iwo Jima. There was no resistance: There were no more 
     Japanese.
       Official figures are testimony to the valor of Americans 
     who served in the Iwo Jima battle. Total casualties 28,686. 
     Of the 6,821 dead or missing, 5,931 were Marines, 195 were 
     Navy corpsmen attached to Marine units. Of the 27 Medals of 
     Honor awarded to Marines and corpsmen for valor at Iwo, more 
     than half were awarded posthumously.
       An estimate of Japanese killed: 20,000. Just 1,083 were 
     taken prisoner--many from the Korean labor battalion.
       On March 14, Adm. Nimitz issued a press release that ended 
     with ``Among the Americans who served at Iwo Jima, uncommon 
     valor was a common virtue.''
       The same day, Gen. Cates, dedicating his 4th Division's 
     cemetery, said, ``No words of mine can express the homage due 
     these fallen heroes. But I can assure you, and also their 
     loved ones, that we will carry their banner forward.''
                [From the Navy Times, February 27, 1995]

 If It Had To Be Done All Over Again--Future Marines Would Take Iwo in 
                              Another Way

                           (By Chris Lawson)

       Washington.--If the Marines were tasked with taking Iwo 
     Jima island tomorrow, chances are the assault would look 
     pretty much the same as 50 years ago. It would be a massive 
     amphibious landing.
       But in 2010, if all goes as planned, the Corps will have 
     the tools in hand to tackle the mission in an entirely new 
     way. From the V-22 Osprey troop carrier to the high-speed 
     advanced amphibious assault vehicle the Corps will be 
     generations ahead of the technology available both in 1945 
     and today. Indeed, its arsenal might even include robot-
     controlled vehicles.
       While today's Marines are highly skilled at fighting in the 
     desert and other open terrain with fast-moving tanks and 
     light armored vehicles--as well as fixed- and rotary-wing 
     aircraft not available in 1945--experts say modern Marines 
     would face many of the same difficulties the 75,000 others 
     did when they came ashore Feb. 19, 1945, and faced down a 
     well-dug-in enemy force of 20,000 Japanese defenders.


                            tough row to hoe

       Some examples:
       The current amphibious tractor travels only 5 mph, a mere 2 
     mph advantage over World War II models.
       Helicopters would be rendered ineffective because nearly 
     every square inch of the small island would be covered with 
     defensive fire.
       Troop mobility would not be significantly improved, since 
     most of today's radios and other equipment are the same size 
     and weight as they were in Vietnam.
       Fancy technology, like global positioning systems, would 
     not have much value on an island with a total area of just 
     eight square miles.
       But today's Marines would have one distinct advantage. They 
     would likely fight at night. ``We could fight in the dark 
     pretty well, but to take a place like Iwo, we'd do it pretty 
     much the same way,'' said Col. Gary Anderson, the director of 
     the Corps' Experimental Unit, a futuristic warfighting think 
     tank at Quantico, Va.
       ``It would probably still take individual Marines to root 
     the enemy out. I don't think that today we have got the 
     capability to force them up out of their [fighting] holes.''


                           a different future

       But in 2010, if the Marines get the weapons platforms 
     they're currently vying for and take advantage of burgeoning 
     commercial technologies, bloody Iwo might not be so bloody.
       The best part: America might not even have to take such an 
     island--just simply go around it.
       But if they did need to seize Iwo, future Marines would 
     have several distinct advantages.
       For starters, the attack could come from over-the-horizon 
     at breakneck speeds and top maneuverability. The V-22 Osprey 
     people mover could help ferry Marines inland to high ground 
     and Iwo airstrips, instead of simply dropping them at the 
     soggy, ash-sand beaches and forcing Marines to slog their way 
     ashore.
       The AAAV could maneuver around any mines in the off-shore 
     waters, and roar from ship to shore at speeds of more than 30 
     mph, thereby reducing their vulnerability to enemy fire.
       Thank again to the legs and speed of the V-22, the 
     logistics trains would likely be based at sea--not on the 
     beach, where in World War II it fell victim to a continuous 
     bombardment by enemy forces.
       The Marines would also have the capability to land 
     infestation teams on the critical high ground and take that 
     advantage away from the enemy. Marines would likely land atop 
     Mount Suribachi and fight their way down to the bottom, 
     instead of working their way up under deadly attack.
                               robots too

       Anderson said robotic technology could have a dramatic 
     effect as well, and possible save the lives of thousands of 
     Marines. Remote-controlled AAAVs, for example, could roar 
     ashore and act as a magnet for enemy fire. Sophisticated 
     sensing systems could then acquire the targets.
       ``You shoot at us, you die,'' Anderson said. ``Every time 
     they fire, they would become a target.''
       The best part: advanced Marine weaponry will likely allow 
     shooters to engage their targets from the line of sight.
       ``If you can get eyes on target, you can kill them,'' 
     Anderson said. ``You wouldn't do away totally with rifle-to-
     rifle and hand-to-hand combat, but you'd cut it way down. In 
     1945, 85 percent of the fighting was done that way. We think 
     we could get that down to 20 percent.''


                          softening the target

       The Marines, Navy and Air Force would also pound the 
     daylights out of the islands with bomb after sophisticated 
     bomb in an effort to prep the battlefield for maximum 
     effectiveness.
       Here again, robots could play a vital role. But just how 
     vital will be determined as much by culture as technology.
       ``Would you see a robot platoon raise the flag on Mount 
     Suribachi? I don't think so,'' Anderson said with a laugh. 
     ``But one of the raisers might be a robot.''
     

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