Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

What did I see from this picture years ago? I saw victory, pride, and joy that the Japanese intruders were taught a lesson.

Then I read, that three of these flag raising gentlemen never made their step back home. Fallen in Iwo Jima, they were 19, 20 and 25.

Poor mother of theirs, fed her baby, bought him ball, taught him read, see him grow but never knew that her boy would die young at the age of 20 in a foreign land. He is too early a nation’s hero, too early in engraving his name on the war memorial, before he learns to appreciate his mother’s love, buys her a carnation, find her a daughter in law, bears her grandchildren. And all his mother got in return of her effort is this, well known picture : "That's Harlon, I know, I know my boy".

These young men, immortalised, yet only in photographs. The sad fact is, the man who sent his men to the battlefield is the real 'terminator', reincarnated in different times and nation, representing different race and religion, he, never dies.