Iwo Jima soldiers paid a high price

World War II: Iwo Jima.

Most younger people today, don’t know about past wars, although I have checked at the schools and they have been taught. They either didn’t pay attention, or it was taught at too young of an age.

There was a movie, "The Sands of Iwo Jima" starring John Wayne. It was the first movie about the flag raisers of the American flag on Mount Suribachi by a squad of infantrymen. The flag raising after a battle was won was on the southern part of the island, they still had to win the north of the island.

The Japanese were dug in and were fighting to the death. During the battles to the north, the squad leader was killed so the assistant squad leader took over, he only lasted a couple of minutes until he was shot in the head and killed.

In the end, only two of the seven survived. One was Ira Hayes, an American Indian. He had many nightmares and eventually drank himself to death 10 years later. He was told he was a hero, but he said, how can I be a hero when only 37 of our company of 250 men survived? To put this into perspective for young people, I would say something like this: Imagine you had 250 classmates in your year of high school, they were sent to war, and only 37 survived. That would be almost eight out of 10 would be killed, maybe one was you. Now do you understand?

Roger Gregory is a Vietnam veteran, serving in the 1st Infantry Division, and is a business owner in Priest River.