It comes down to it being a battle for optics.

Truth is so precious it must be protected with a bodyguard of lies.

Winston Churchill, 1943.

The first casualty of war is truth.

Attributed to Senator Hiram Johnson.

First of all let's get this straight. I am in NO WAY slighting the service people that fought in the Pacific. The fighting there was nothing less than savage. Part of this post is about the optics of the 7th War Bond Drive that happened in the States, far away from the action.

I no longer believe anything I see or read on the internet. The various technologies can spin anything anyway someone wants it to be spun. I should have figured that out after I read about the flag raising on Iwo Jima years ago. The picture was extremely dramatic but the truth is that it was raised by 40 man patrol that was sent to the top to raise the flag to improve morale. While the ascent was very lightly opposed, there was some brief fighting immediately after the first flag went up. Three Japanese emerged from one of the caves and were neutralized in short order.

The second, replacement flag, was raised several hours later because it was a bigger flag and could be seen better.  This is the flag raising Joe Rosenthal caught on film that became famous. The flag itself was brought up Mt Suribachi by a 3 man detail and was completely unopposed.

While the flag raising made it appear that the battle was over, the fighting continued with about five more weeks of savage fighting. For the record, Mt. Suribachi itself was considered secured when the flag went up although the fighting on other parts of the island went on for several weeks.

When the flag raising picture hit the press it was a major sensation. The surviving three flag raisers were  sent back to the States to participate in the 7th War Bond Drive which became a major success. Two of the surviving flag raisers in the photograph were misidentified so only one, Ira Hayes, an actual flag raiser was on the bond tour. During the tour Hayes was sent back to the fleet allegedly at his own request. Fact is his conscience likely couldn't handle what he considered to be a fraud on top of PTSD and he drank himself goofy and was sent back to the fleet. After Hayes left there were no more actual flag raisers on stage.

For those of you that are somewhat knowledgeable of history,  Rene Gagnon and James 'Doc' Bradley were not actual flag raisers as the public has been told for decades. Gagnon was handed a copy of the picture and was told to identify the people in it and misidentified several of them, including himself. He said he was one of them.

At first he refused to identify Ira Hayes. While Ira didn't have a college education he knew trouble when he say it. When he heard Gagnon was being called in to identify the people in the picture Hayes 'threatened him with physical action' if Gagnon identified him. Gagnon caved in and named Hayes after the Marine Corps threatened him with serious criminal prosecution.

When the tour got started the Corps knew that Harlon Block had been misidentified as Hank Hanson. They chose to keep quiet about it until 1947 when Block was recognized. Harold Keller was misidentified as being Rene Gagnon. He wrote headquarters. Years later in a scrapbook belonging to Keller that was a 'strongly worded letter' from a Marine major general basically telling him to keep his mouth shut. 

As for Rosenthal's picture, the optics were perfect. One look at it and one just knew that the Marines had savagely battled their way to the top.

Little did the public know that the 40 man patrol had simply been handed a flag and sent to the top of Mount Suribachi with orders to raise it to let the CO know they had arrived there. The public was totally unaware that the 40 man patrol got to the top of Suribachi unopposed. Little did the public know that the iconic picture was of a second flag raising ordered by a higher up to make the flag more visible to the troops to bolster their morale. 

The adoring fans never knew that their heroes were not, if fact the actual flag raisers. Personally I think that 'Doc' Bradley and Rene Gagnon thought they really were in the picture. There was a lot going on and it's easy to make a mistake. While as a serviceman I was on many details, I'll be damned if I can remember a whole lot of what I did. I know for certain and certainly expect that Ira and 'Doc' would have probably been somewhere else than on a war bond tour. Fancy rooms, good booze or no fancy rooms and good booze. 

Incidentally every Marine, soldier or sailor that served on Iwo deserved the royal treatment.

James Bradley, author of Flags of our Fathers said that the only one of the three that tried to take advantage of the situation they found themselves in was Gagnon. Bradley also said that he's reasonably sure his father was not one of the actual flag raisers.

Ira returned to the reservation with his ghosts and demons and was found dead in 1955 of exposure and alcohol poisoning. He was 32 years old. Hayes was also instrumental in publicly identifying Harlon Block as one of the original flag raisers after the war.

One glance at that picture and you see six Marines planting Old Glory on top of a heavily contested hill. Anyone looking at the picture immediately visualizes bombs bursting and bullets whizzing by as the Marines raise Old Glory. 

A simple work detail photographed at the right time in the right place became one of the most iconic symbols of WW2.

It was a case of pure optics.

Another case of pure optics was Treyvon Martin. 

When George Zimmerman shot Treyvon Martin the left screeched and posted a picture of a younger Treyvon and he looked like an honor student on his way to read Bible passages to his blind grandmother. 

Actually the picture sounded too wholesome for my cynical sorry ass so I dig and almost instantly saw a copy of his Facebook picture and that told a very different tale. A quick Google images search only shows a very, very few pictures of Martin as an angry 17 year old thug wannabe. They still show countless pictures of the innocent 12 or 13 year old.

Still, the optics of the first picture influenced a lot of people to the point where Zimmerman had to be tried to bow to public pressure based on the innocent looking picture of Martin taken years earlier.

Again, optics.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY