The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: Clint Eastwood's latest film, Flags of
Our
Fathers, tells the story of the men who raised the stars and stripes on
Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima...and the three of them who survived. Bill
Bonner explores the amount of courage - and sheer stubbornness -
displayed
in World War II...

IWO JIMA
by Bill Bonner

General Kuribayashi knew his goose was cooked long before the big guns
opened up on February 19, 1945. He had already written to his wife to
say
farewell. He had prepared his seppuku sword. And now in front of him
were
880 ships bearing 110,000 soldiers. And every single one of these
fighting
men wanted him dead.

Thus did the Battle of Iwo Jima commence: First with a naval
bombardment
that rattled every stone on an island smaller than Manhattan...and then
with heavy bombers coming in to soften up the target.

Last night, we went to see the movie, Flags of our Fathers. Henry
judged
it 'a bit slow.' Your editor, on the other hand, was entertained and
intrigued. He had been wondering about courage. This was a movie,
loosely,
on the subject.

Clint Eastwood's movie tells the story of the men who raised the stars
and
stripes on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima...and the three of them who
survived. The other three died within days of the flag's raising.

It was a strange battle. Capturing the high ground and putting up the
flag
was hardly the end of it; it was barely the beginning. Marines made it
to
the top of the mountain after only a week of fighting. But the 22,000
Japanese troops were still there...and most of them still able to fight
and with no apparent intention of doing anything else. They had built
themselves hidden fortifications, dug into the rock and reinforced with
concrete and steel...often connected to other caves by miles of
interior
corridors. The leathernecks looked around them and saw no enemies
standing. But they kept getting shot.

The Japanese had neither left nor surrendered. They had gone
underground,
where it was almost impossible to get them out.

Your editor has never been in a real battle. That is probably why he
likes
reading about them. Battles have a certain moral appeal; in politics,
foolish and absurd things often help draw a crowd or get a man elected.
In
markets, they can make him rich - at least for a while. Neither is in
war;
ignorance and cowardice are always punished; but at least the
excitement
of it - from a safe distance - is more engaging.

The three surviving members of the Iwo Jima flag-raising were sent back
to
America, while the war was still going on. They were dragged up and
down
the East Coast, and told to do their duty in an entirely different way;
this time, the army wanted them to help push U.S. bonds. The GIs did
what
was asked of them and the crowds, seeing authentic heroes before them,
heaved up enough cash to keep the planes flying. But the whole
spectacle
seemed to weigh more heavily on one of the three - a Pima Indian - than
on
the others. He knew the truth; he was just a marine who had done what
was
asked of him, not a true hero.

Maybe, some men take to deceit more readily than others. Maybe, as a
Native American, he already had his own problems fitting into society.
Whatever the reason, the poor soldier never seemed to recover from the
war...and eventually drank himself to death.

It is rare for a soldier to be troubled by such things. Poets sometimes
agonize over truth, courage and beauty. And women, who have a keen
instinct for detecting deceit, tend to be more impressed by a rich
coward
than a poor hero. But a real fighting man doesn't even think about it.
He
covers the man in front of him...and depends on the man behind him for
cover. He asks for little else and even dies, when it is asked of him,
with little complaint. Studying a battle carefully, we can appreciate
and
honor good soldiers for what they really are - not merely as hollow
props
for politicians and fundraising campaigns.

The Japanese strategy was simple. They knew they couldn't hold Iwo
Jima.
General Kuribayashi was given the mission of inflicting as many
casualties
as possible on the marines, so as to make the Americans think twice
before
invading the Japanese home islands. General Kuribayashi was regarded as
a
genius in his métier. He had been educated in Canada and had toured the
United States. He was a scholar and an aristocrat, whose knowledge of
war
was extensive.

But the Japanese high command was ignorant of the most important bit of
information it could have had. The United States had at its disposal,
an
atomic bomb that it was just itching to try out. The more casualties
Kuribayashi's men were able to inflict, the more using the bomb seemed
to
make sense.

In retrospect, a much better strategy would have been to abandon the
island and sue for peace. But what fighting man wants to do that? It is
almost an admission of cowardice.

Even without knowledge of the atomic bomb, a truly courageous Japanese
statesman would have admitted that the war was lost, for the Japanese
had
no fuel...and had lost control of both the sea and the air.... He would
have faced up to the consequences and spared his countrymen hundreds of
thousands of additional deaths.

But courage is a very rare thing, especially in the military. A good
soldier is willing to die for his country and his comrades. But under
no
circumstances will he be willing to think...and risk being tagged a
coward. There is no epithet more damning that being called a coward. To
avoid it, military men will do the most absurd and preposterous things.

This was probably even truer for the Japanese than for the Americans.
Trained in the immensely demanding samurai tradition, the Japanese were
expected to fight to the last man. And their commander was expected to
kill himself, rather than be captured. Each man, Kuribayashi told his
troops, had to kill ten Americans before he went down himself. And at
the
beginning of the battle, his men were actually exceeding their quotas.
They opened up on the invaders from their hidden nests. On the beach,
or
out on the rocks, the marines found little cover. And the enemy seemed
to
be everywhere. No sooner had they taken out one machine gun, than
another
opened up from another direction.

This was the only battle against the Japanese where the United States
suffered more casualties than the enemy - 26,000 as opposed to 22,000.
Almost all the Japanese were killed. Many killed themselves in order to
avoid capture - including the Japanese commander, who disemboweled
himself
in his bunker before the marines got to him.

We admit we admire General Kuribayashi. Cutting out your own intestines
takes fortitude and self-discipline. But we might admire him even more
if
he had shown the courage to defy his superiors and give up.

We also admire the marines who fought...and those who died. Since the
Japanese were unwilling to surrender, each hidden burrow had to be
discovered and neutralized, one by one, at terrific cost. It was like
"throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete," say war historians.

The human flesh did what flesh does. Hurled against the concrete and
rock
of Iwo Jima, 6,821 marines died. Over one fourth of the Medals of Honor
awarded to Marines in World War II were given for action at Iwo Jima -
27
altogether, the most ever given to soldiers in a single battle. And Iwo
Jima proved useful almost immediately as an airbase and for crippled
bombers to make emergency landings on the way back from Japan. Whether
that was worth almost 7,000 dead men and 26,000 casualties is another
thing.

Were these men - the Allies as well as the Japanese - heroes? Or were
they
merely fools doing what they had been told to do? We don't know. That
is
for the gods to decide. We only say what occurs to us as we think of
them.
Our heart tells us they were brave men. Our brain tell us they could
have
been served better by the men and the machinery which sent them to
their
deaths. With another kind of bravery, neither side need have
killed...or
been killed. But that story might not have made as good a movie.

Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning