Richard Wheeler - The Bloody Battle for Suribachi: The Amazing Story of Iwo Jima that Inspired Flags of Our Fathers

Authors note to his father as the battle loomed.

Letter received by authors father from Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington.

How the author learned of the death of Howard Snyder, his best friend.

Letter to author by Robert Leader about five months after the battle while the two friends were recuperating from severe wounds in hospitals about 2,500 miles apart. Immediately after the war the battered menone an art student, the other an aspiring authorbegan working on their dream careers, which, living into their eighties, they managed to bring to fulfillment.

1965 letter to the authors publisher by Iwos top Marine commander, General Holland Smith, after he had been provided with an advance copy of Suribachi .

General Holland M. Smithseated, wearing helmetin a captured Japanese dugout.

RECONCILIATION. (Begin reading in small box at upper right.)

By November 2006, there were only nine members of Easy Companys 3rd Platoon still alive. Seven of us managed to make it to Washington, D.C., for a platoon reunion that was part of a four-day series of Veterans Day activities. Our seven-man reunion was sponsored by Texas Governor Rick Perry as a tribute to our Texas platoon leader, Keith Wells, now long-retired as an honorary major.

Wells was still hardy and strong-spirited at age 85. But he grew misty-eyed as he greeted the handful of old men, all wearing Purple Hearts, who had once rallied to his indomitable leadership and joined him in a costly but gainful charge into Suribachis main defenses.

Among the highlights of the Veterans Day events was a White House breakfast, during which our 3rd Platoon men were photographed, individually, with President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.

Also on the Veterans Day schedule were two military banquets, the dedication of the Marine Corps museum at Quantico, services for the dead at Arlington, and gatherings at the new World War II Memorial in Washington.

Many thousands of veterans and civilians were in the Washington area for the round of activities, which were favored by perfect weather. Cameras clicked incessantly, and many were aimed at Keith Wells and his men, who were easily identified by special caps that proclaimed: The 3rd Platoon1st on Suribachi.

Most deeply rewarding to the seven Marines, however, was the camaraderie they enjoyed. Their terrifying days on Iwo Jima were discussed freelysometimes even with touches of amusement. They considered themselves privileged to have been part of a vital mission that provided them an extraordinary adventure and national repute.

Slain comrades were mentioned lamentingly, but the general carnage was accepted as a natural part of warfare. The seven were proud of their wounds, and they shrugged off the residual problems and discomforts that have never stopped plaguing them.

They expressed satisfaction with the matter-of-fact way they had returned home and immediately began building productive lives, much too busy to be haunted very long by the ghosts of Iwo Jima.

To a man they agreed that, if they were young again and the nation called upon them to deal with another such challenge, they would respond at once.

The seven old men who were once proud Marinesand still are. From left: John Scheperle, James Rigney, Dick Wheeler, Chuck Lindberg, Keith Wells, Kenneth Espenes, and Bill Wayne.

Major Keith Wells, in company with the authors aide, his cousin Judge Jacqueline Russell, and the author.

The author (right) with his lifetime friend, Charles Chuck Lindberg, one of Iwo Jimas flag raisers, and the feats only survivor. (Chuck died, nearly 87 years old, seven months after this meeting.)

Chuck Lindberg in 1944.

John G. Scheperle as a teen-aged 3rd Platooneralways a MAN you could count on.