Rating: 
Summary: Buy it!
Review: I bought the book because of my interest and fascination with WW2. The picture and subsequent statue of the men on Sirabachi was always an impressive image in my mind as a child. The book was well written and gripping as it follows the lives of these men who planted the US flag on Iwo Jima. It should be a textbook for any course on WW2. It contains history, patriotism, action, and drama. Perhaps it's most compelling attribute is that it brings to life the black and white pictures and grainy films from the WW2 archives. It humanizes the great sacrifice of these men for the USA. A tremendous book.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect book
Review: It is seldom that a book serves to both entertain and teach. This book does both. In spades.It is a glimpse into the savagery of the WWII Pacific Theater, the ferocious tenacity of our enemy, and the heroism of the ordinary American boys who were sent to do extraordinary service. The story is as compelling as any page-turner and the characterizations as complete as a fine novel. I was sad when it ended. A perfect book. It will win this year's Pulitzer and live on to become an American classic. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: VERY MOVING!
Review: Words can't explain how I felt for those young boys and what they had to go through. I do believe that the real hero's where the "one's that never made it back" and "the one's that never could talked about it". My Godfather, who was in the book, never told the family about his experience's and to this day won't talk about it. A REAL HERO! A must read.
Rating: 
Summary: The truth behind the myths.
Review: What a wonderful story. It is full of so much that we never knew. The horror of war and how it effected the lives of just six families.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Special Book...
Review: Very few books grab me and sweep me along the way this one did... A good friend recommended "Flags" to me -- saying he was absolutely captured by it. Now I understand his comment. My Dad fought in World War II -- and my father-in-law did too. Both fought in the Pacific -- one as an Engineer, the other as a Navigator/Bombadier. This book brought home to me just a bit of what they went through -- and what they went through, although incredibly difficult, was just a bit of what the Marines went through on Iwo Jima. In the bicentennial year of 1976, I lived near Washington, DC. I always found the Marine Corps Memorial (of the "Flags") at Arlington to be the most symbolic memorial. This book brings the story of that memorial (and the widely-published photograph upon which it is based) to life...and brings the deaths of so many to life. An amazing book...it's a story very well told. But, more importantly, it's a story of the amazing heroism on the part of so many who gave their lives on Iwo Jima so that we could have our freedom today.
Rating:
Summary: OOH RAH!
Review: OUTSTANDING. A GREAT STORY OF THE MEN OF IWO. IT WAS GREAT THAT SOMEONE TOLD OF THE MEN BEHIND THE PHOTO. I WAS TAKING BACK BY THE STORY OF EACH OF THE SIX MENS LIVES, BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE FLAG RAISING. I LISTENED TO THE BOOK IN ONE DAY, COULDN'T STOP. MADE ME WEEP MORE THAN ONCE. THIS TRULY SHOWS WHY IWO PRODUCED THE PHRASE "UNCOMMON VALOR, WAS A COMMON VIRTUE" MY SINCERE COMPLIMENTS TO MR. BRADEY. AND TO ALL VETS OF IWO, SEMPER FI.
Rating:
Summary: Facinating story on many levels
Review: This book is a story about men at war, the effects on their families, how people handle (or don't handle) sudden fame, how an almost chance photograph because one of the most famous photographs ever, and last but not least, a son's search for his father's past. While much of the book is tragic and sad (as are most histories of war), in the end I felt uplifted. Thank you Mr. Bradley for sharing your father's story with us.
Rating:
Summary: A must read.
Review: Simply put, this is an outstanding book in which the author has clearly done extensive research in providing an accurate detail of Iwo Jima and the combatants. A must read for any person who enjoys American history, or just an overall great book with a moving story.
Rating:
Summary: best account of combat and iwo jima
Review: Wonderful story behind the flag raising on Iwo Jima. A must read history book for our young generation, so they may understand that generation that gave so much. Very emotional book. As a former Marine, more than just proud.
Rating:
Summary: Moving, Heroic and Patriotic
Review: I am familiar with The Photograph of the Iwo Jima flag raising, as I suspect most all readers will be. Like other readers, I only knew the men in the photo as Marines, not as individuals. Bradley has written an interesting and moving book by telling the stories of the men who were the "flag raisers." Bradley does an excellent job of introducing us to the boys (one of who is the author's father) of the 1930's and 1940's who would achieve fame in Rosenthal's photo. These are fascinating subjects, who we grow to care about very early in the book. They are simple boys/men doing their duty, growing up in poverty and working class homes and thrust (the three flag raisers who survived the battle) into a limelight that two of the three did not seek nor enjoy. This book is a love note to the author's dad and the men who both survived and perished on Iwo Jima. In this the book is moving, sympathetic and patriotic. Though not a thorough telling of the battle, nor a complete biography of the flag raisers, this book combines elements of both to make compelling reading of simple men and the impact The Photograph had on their lives and the nation. By focusing on a handfull of enlisted men, Bradley creates an excellent flavor of what it was like in the war and how it changed men who went through it.
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