Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00244)

>From another group:
Cass

Each year I am hired to go to Washington DC,with the eighth grade 
 class from Clinton WI.where I grew up,to videotape their trip.I 
 greatly enjoy visiting our nations capitol,and each year I take some 
 special memories back with me.This trip was especially memorable.
 
 On the last night of our trip,we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial.  
 This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts 
 one of the most famous photographs in history-that of the six brave 
 soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the 
 island of Iwo Jima,Japan,during WW II.
 
 Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and 
 headed towards the memorial.I noticed a solitary figure at the base 
 of the statue,and as I got closer he asked,Where are you guys from?
 
 I told him that we were from Wisconsin.Hey,I'm a cheese head too!  
 Come gather around,Cheese heads,and I will tell you a story.
 
 James Bradley just happened to be in Washington DC,to speak at the 
 memorial the following day.He was there that night to say good night 
 to his dad,who has since passed away.He was just about to leave when 
 he saw the buses pull up.I videotaped him as he spoke to us,and 
 received his permission to share what he said from my videotape.It 
 is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in 
 Washington DC,but its quite another to get the kind of insight we 
 received that night.
 
 When all had gathered around,he reverently began 
 to speak.Here are his words spoken that night.
 
 "My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is 
 on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our 
 Fathers". It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.
 
 "Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the 
 ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He 
 enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his 
 football team.  They were off to play another type of game. A game 
 called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game.
 
 Harlon,at the age of 21,died with his intestines in his hands.I dont 
 say that to gross you out,I say that because there are generals who 
 stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war.You 
 guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17,18,and 
 19 years old.
 
 He pointed to the statue-"You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon 
 from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this 
 photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would 
 find a photograph... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that 
 in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. 
 Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.
 
 "The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike 
 Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They 
 called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. 
 When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't 
 say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' 
 He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do 
 what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.'
 
 "The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian 
 from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White 
 House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He 
 told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies 
 hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you 
 take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together 
 having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the 
 beach, but only 27 of  your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira 
 Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead 
 drunk, face down at the age of 32 ... ten years after this picture 
 was taken.
 
 "The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from 
 Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who 
 is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the 
 porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the 
 stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. 
 Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at 
 the age of 19.  When the telegram came to tell his mother that he 
 was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran 
 that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her 
 scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter 
 of a mile away.
 
 "The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, 
 John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad 
 lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter 
 Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were 
 trained as little kids to say, 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not 
 here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, 
 we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even 
 went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table 
 eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was 
 out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press.
 
 "You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these 
 guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My 
 dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a 
 caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. 
 And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.
 
 "When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad 
 was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me 
 and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima 
 are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'
 
 "So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo 
 Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys 
 died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine 
 Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for 
 your time."
 
 Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a 
 flag sticking out of the top It came to life before our eyes with 
 the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a 
 hero.  Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, 
 but a hero nonetheless.
 
 Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on 
 Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for 
 our freedom. Remember to pray for this great country of ours and 
 also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP 
 and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's 
 sacrifice.
 
 Everyday that you wake up free,
 its going to be a great day.
 
 Please pass this along to all.
 You can tell 'em you wrote it,
 just as long as you pass it on.
 

krsanna <timestar@timestar.org> wrote: 1.  The example is "Hitler's Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to 
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler" available at Amazon.com, first published 
in English in 2003.  The manuscript was tied up in legal and 
academic research for decades.  The most recent example of America's 
dealings with Native Americans is the Eloise Cobell case against the 
U.S. that has been in federal court for several years.  You can 
Google "Cobell vs" to find it.  The Cobell case represents long-
standing federal policy in dealing with Indians, that is now being 
staunchly questioned in the courts.  In 2002, a federal judge held 
employees of the Department of the Interior in contempt of court for 
repeatedly refusing to account for their handling of Indians in 
cases as recent as 1990.  

The behavior questioned in the Cobell case is mild compared to early 
instances of genocide under the guidance of Andrew Jackson.  You 
didn't ask me about what Andrew Jackson did, but you could start 
with Supreme Court rulings in the early 19th century which declared 
the land grab that Jackson orchestrated illegal.  Jackson had the 
army and conducted blatant genocide to accomplish his desires, 
knowing full well the illegality of his actions.  Things got worse 
for Indians from that time.  

2.  Of course I looked to find Theosophical work in the Civil Rights 
Movement.  I didn't have to look far to find Gandhi's involvement in 
India's independence and Nehru's assistance to Tibet.  

Krsanna Duran


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky  wrote:
>
> krsanna wrote:
> > Amen! Americans rarely acknowledge that America was Hitler's 
> > inspiration for confining and eliminating inferior races, and 
that 
> > he wrote about how well America had handled American Indians by 
> > isolating them on "federal reservations," that were often as 
cruel 
> > as Hitler's concentration camps. 
> 
>  Can you give ONE example of this?
> 
>  > American President Andrew Jackson
> > pioneered biological warfare by infecting blankets with 
smallpox, 
> > rounding up Indian children, women and men at gunpoint in the 
middle 
> > of the winter and giving them the smallpox infected blankets.  
> 
>  The French pioneered it during the French and Indian war. 
Please give 
> documentation that Andrew Jackson even used it.
> 
> > American Indians do not have immunity to childhood diseases 
common 
> > in Europe, i.e., measles and smallpox.  This lack of immunity is 
> > part of American Indian genetics and America's government used 
it to 
> > exterminate the Indians who had legal claims to their 
homelands.  
> 
>  Can you document this, or are you making this up, as well?
> 
> > inferiors was still practiced in America during World War II.  
One 
> > of the first things I noticed about theosophical hypocracies was 
> > that I have never once seen a single comment in theosophical 
> > literature about the Civil Rights Movement that Rosa Parks began 
in 
> > 1954 when she refused to give up her seat to a White man.  
> 
>  Have you looked?
> 
> > Why didn't an organization dedicated to brotherhood get out on 
the 
> > line and march with Rosa Parks?  Why didn't Theosophists write 
about 
> > the Civil Rights Movement to integrate America's schools, 
> > businesses, and churches the way Gandhi worked to liberate India?
> 
>  Because the Theosophical Society itself is enjoined from 
getting 
> involved in politics, although individual members are encouraged 
to do so.
> 
>  Bart
>






 
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