I wonder what my grandfather would think of it

They survived the war, but Iwo Jima marked them for life

Flags of Our Fathers is getting a lot of hype these days. It's about the Battle of Iwo Jima, in which my grandfather, a Marine with a tank group, fought. He never really told me the horror of the war. He did always make clear that the famous photo was staged, that the original flag was planted earlier and then a flag was replanted in front of the camera for greater effect. He talked of tanks mired in the sand. And he talked of refusing to volunteer for a dangerous mission on the front line. He would have gone if ordered, but he had a wife and baby to come home to, and told his commanding officer that he wouldn't volunteer to go there.

That's about all I know about Iwo Jima from my grandfather's perspective. But I know it had a profound effect on his psyche; you could tell that despite the rest of his life Iwo Jima haunted him to some extent when he spoke of the war.

My grandfather's generation fought a different war than we have today; it was one where the very survival of the world seemed to hinge upon it. I'm glad that, now, when so many World War II veterans are dying, that we pause and reflect upon what they did. The WWII memorial in Washington should have built way sooner. Vietnam was an upopular war that threatened to be forgotten, but veterans and others were very vocal about a memorial. WWII sort of slipped through the cracks because so many served, so many had tried to put that service behind them, and a memorial didn't seem so important whilst so many living memorials existed.

I don't think it's coincidence that this and other movies about war are being made today. We always look at history through the lens of our own time. Some will be patriotic, tacitly supporting the war in Iraq. Others will examine the horrors of war. Clint Eastwood seems to be trying for a realistic view of war and how it affected real people--and also how it was manipulated. I don't know if there's a judgement call in this film. I won't say I'll run out to the theatre to watch it, but I'd be interested in seeing someday, if nothing else than to understand my grandfather, who has been gone six years now, a little better.

One thing I find interesting is that Eastwood is also working on a companion piece, Letters from Iwo Jima, that tells of the battle from the Japanese perspective. That makes me think he's trying to be fairly balanced in his depiction of the battle. I applaud that. We sometimes get so hung up on how war affects 'our side' that we lose touch with the fact that there are casualties, both physical and psychological, on both sides of a conflict.