SIX BOYS AND THIRTEEN HANDS ....
(written about 2000 by Mike Powers)
This starts the copyrighted section as read by me, using this font and size.
Added material are in bold in this font and size. Commentary is in this font and size.
Powers claims that he takes annual trips to Washington DC to videotape children, something that he remembers fondly.
Powers said that he and the children tarried at the world’s largest bronze idol depicting six government employees collaborating in a photo op.
Powers said a loiterer asked the mob of charges and their caretakers whence they had traveled.
Powers said when the loiterer heard they were cheese-heads, he told them that he was James Bradley, author of a book, and offered to tell them a story if they would come closer to him.
Bradley claimed to be descended from one of the government employees.
Bradley said that a half-a-dozen juveniles raised a flag. Harlan Block, whose claims to heroism were that he was an athlete and a government employee, depicted putting a pole into the ground, was the first subject of Bradley’s remarks. Without intending to gross his listeners out, he said that 21-year-old Block died handling his own guts. He incoherently said that the majority of juveniles at Iwo Jima were 17-19 years old and something was so difficult that survivors wouldn’t talk about it.
Bradley pointed out 18-year-old New Hampshire resident Rene Gagnon who carried a photo of his girlfriend in his helmet lining as a totem against his fear.
Bradley repeatedly said that juveniles, not senior citizens, won the Iwo Jima conflict.
Bradley continued his story by discussing Sergeant Mike Strank. Bradley said that ‘the old man’ Strank, 24, was hero to the other juveniles and to him. Strank, knowing that he was talking to little boys, would promise that he would get them home to their mommies, instead of trying to motivate them by appeals to prejudice or nationalism.
Bradley said the fourth subject, Arizona Pima Ira Hayes, one of 27 survivors (out of 250 comrades) of the battle, rejected President Truman’s compliment that he was a hero, asking how to feel like a hero when so many of his friends died.
Bradley likened Marine life to school life: in which 250 guys enjoy doing together everything during a year, then go to the beach, and 223 guys die. He said that Hayes, while drunk from trying to erase the pain of horrific mental images, died ten years after the photo opp.
Bradley said that the fifth guy, Franklin Sousley, a high-spirited irresponsible juvenile resident of Hilltop, KY, once fed Epsom salts to a pair of cows that he and a friend confined on a store porch. The cows pooped until morning. He sure was a high-spirited irresponsible juvenile who died at 19 on Iwo Jima. His mother freaked out all night after a shoeless child delivered to her a telegram informing her that Franklin was dead. Neighbors a quarter-mile away could hear her carrying on.
(What’s the point? The woman just found out that she had wasted part of her life. Her son, in whom she had invested so much of her resources, was gone.)
Bradley concluded his tour of the idol by talking about his father, John Bradley, a home town resident until he died in 1994. Bradley senior taught his kids to lie about him so folks would not interview him.
Bradley said that his dad, a medic who may have held over 200 writhing and screaming juveniles without pain relief until they died, like Haynes, did not see himself as a hero just because he was part of an idol or a picture.
Bradley reminisced that a teacher idolized his dad as a hero. His dad disagreed by admonishing him to remember that the guys who died were the heroes. The guys who died were the heroes.
Bradley summarized that three juveniles died and three juveniles returned acclaimed heroes from the historically worst battle fought by the Marines. He thanked his listeners and ended his remarks.
Powers perceives the idol as more than scrap with a rag on top. To Powers, the idol lives because an adult son of an amorphous hero spoke.
This ends the copyrighted portions as read by me. The following items within [brackets] are apocryphal:
[We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice
[Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom.
[Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world.
[STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice.
[God Bless You and God Bless America
[REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.
[One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is ... that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of 'hands' raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God.
[“Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it, shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ.”]
This is a lovely well written bit of pro-State propaganda, by Michael Powers, http://iwvpa.net/powersmt/index.php at around 2000, or so. Someone claiming to be Powers has complained to me, saying that I need his permission to post his propaganda. Since I got this from someone without any attribution, I have no obligation to respect Powers or his complaint.
I checked Snopes athttp://www.snopes.com/military/sixboys.asp I found this story at Truth or Fiction: :http://truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/bravesoldiers.htm. Both accounts that I saw included the observation that the last few paragraphs of this piece were included after Powers wrote it. A photographer, Joe Rosenthal, reportedly photographed the second raising of a Flag on a mountain five days into a thirty-five day battle. This picture lead to the sculpting of the USMC War Memorial idolized in “Six Boys”. The “Flag” picture was actually a propaganda effort. See here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima for information on the battle, here for the taking of the “Flag” picturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jimaand here for the making of the statue:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USMC_War_Memorial.
“Six Boys and Thirteen Hands”(Six Boys) is corrupt. The underlying premise to this piece is that your life belongs to someone else, that you have an obligation to serve nonentities called by such names as “faith,” “family,” or “fatherland”.
You don’t need someone to fight on your behalf at everyone’s expense. You can defend yourself. You can delegate your defense at your expense to a willing agent. You have the right to decide whether to use lethal or non-lethal reaction to aggressive action directed against you. You do not have the right to inflict collateral damage, that is, casualties on noncombatants.
You owe nothing to a metaphysical nonentity. Nor do you owe a duty to someone or something, just because you are alive.
What is freedom for which so many “lay down their lives?” Here is a definition of freedom: · "Freedom in its most elemental state is the power to withdraw one's consent when the State-or anyone else-lays an improper claim to one's life or property." -Will Grigg Reflections on Resurrection Sunday: We're Commanded to be Free ProLiberate 3.23.2008http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/search?q=reflections+on+resurrection+day
In a Utopian world, our agendas would all be compatible. In the real world, we often have partially-or even totally- incompatible agendas. Some of us try to resolve differences through negotiation. Some of us use force, -or threaten to use force –to authorize us to seize what we want. Some of us support one or the other.
The core of this paean to sacrifice is that some 7,000 men died to secure an island of negligible value in the name of securing the freedoms of “the People,” residents of a nation-state.
And this inconsequential event was promoted as a monumental battle for the greater good of the citizens of a nation-state. Many folks saw the flag raising as the climax of the Iwo Jima battle, when in fact, it was just a stunt to elevate the morale of government employees and their family members and friends.
The most pernicious part of “Six Boys” is that there is really no point to Bradley’s remarks. It’s just a collection of words meant to make readers experience emotive reactions in support for government employees.
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