Rating: 
Summary: A Moving Reading Experience
Review: As an ex-marine who entered the Corps just sixteen months after the invasion of Iwo Jima, I found this book a most moving experience that brought me to tears throughout the book. my forever thanks are to those fellow marines that gave their everything to keep America free. My thanks to the author James Bradley who refocused my attention to the flagraisers and to the magnificent men and women of WWII. Iwould say that this is a book that should be read by all Americans, especially our young people. Thank you again Mr.Graham for a masterpeace on your father and the other valiant marines
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Summary: I want everyone I know to read this book.
Review: I've almost finished this book, and I hate to see it end. The story of how this photograph came to be taken is beautifully told, weaving together details of the participants' early lives, military training, attitudes and beliefs, and families. Even better, though, is the language used in telling this story: it is a pleasure to read. I have been sobered by the description of the fighting on Iwo Jima. While I have always had a deep appreciation of what our military men have done for our country and for us, the details of this battle are staggering. I'm impressed with the personal stories which the author was able to collect, and the beautiful and seamless way in which they are put together. If you love adventure, if you love war stories, or if you care about people personally, this book is for you. Actually, this book is for EVERYONE.
Rating: 
Summary: Flags of Our Fathers
Review: Mr. Bradley's book left me momentarily depressed, not because it's a bad book; on the contrary. He captured the spirit and flavor of Iwo Jima so realistically, that I was momentarily saddened for an frightened 18-year old Marine who lost his youth and nearly lost a leg on that cinder block.I was only a replacement rifleman in the 26th Marines (instead of the 28th). We were perhaps half a mile, maybe a little more, north of Suribachi when the Flag went up. My foxhole buddy saw it first and called my attention to it. Tears came to my eyes. I've never seen a more glorious sight! The book contains some minor errors about boot camp and especially about life in Camp Pendleton in 1944, but they're unimportant. The book is authentic. Although combat is an intensely personal experience, I think Mr. Bradley spoke for all of us when he quoted one of the survivors as saying that his greatest fear was that he would somehow fail in his duty and let his buddies down. It's a good read, and I strongly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Simply moving
Review: I put everything down to finish Flags of Our Fathers in 2 days. The book is simply moving. There's nothing more to say about it, but I'll add a couple more thoughts. I think the power of this book is, first, that it forces us to remember and respect those who influenced history, and not the Winston Churchills and Hitlers of the world, but also the so-called ordinary people who had such an impact on the course of world events. There's nothing ordinary about them. Secondly, I think Bradley's book should force us to live life in a more heroic way. I think his book inspires us, or at least inspired me, to aspire to everyday heroism as much as possible. If we are to truly benefit from this book, we should not only be moved by the six men who raised the flag, and by all the other Marines who fought on Iwo, Bougainville, Guadalcanal, and all other islands in the bloody Pacific battlefield, but we should also be open to and changed by the heroism of these men. Those who fought say their actions weren't heroic, but in this day and age when fame comes cheaply, there's no other way to describe the Marines who fought in WWII. Their actions in combat deserve to be an example of heroism for all time.
Rating:
Summary: Respect, and Adjuration
Review: I read this book, expecting a hard emotionless narrative of the battle of Iwo Jima and the documented history of the Iwo flagraisers. What I experienced was heartache, sadness, and horror at what those poor men endured to secure that island in the pacific. I emotionally moved by the author's humane accounting of the madness that unfurled on that island. Not just for the Americans storming the beaches, but also the Japanese who which I couldn't help to sympathize with. They too were victims. I felt pride, honor and respect in the heroic deeds that our American Servicemen accomplished. It truly was an amazing feat of human endurance. Anyone who wants to see what a man can endure and accomplish in the most hellish conditions possible should pick up this book. Here you will relish in what is the greatness of the human spirit. One of the best works on War and its consequences I have ever read.
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Summary: An Important Vital Book
Review: "Flags of Our Fathers" is without a doubt the most amazing book I have ever read. A thoughtful and intense examination of the six Marines who were memoralized in the flag-raising photo on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Bradley carefully documents the lives and struggles of these brave men. To read of their exploits on the hell of Iwo Jima truly exemplifies why people refer to the soldiers of that time as "America's Greatest Generation", after reading this book, there can be no doubt. After completing the book, I am compelled to visit the graves of three of the flag-raisers who are buried at Arlington Cemetary. It is because of a book like this that I am proud to be an American and ever thankful for the sacrifices that men such as these made for our benefit.
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Summary: Six Ordinary Men: Symbols of World War II
Review: The image of six military men, five Marines and a Navy medical corpsman, raising the American flag on the summit of Mount Suribachi during the brutal battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945, according to author James Bradley, "became the most recognized, the most reproduced, in the history of photography." However, Bradley, the son of John Henry Bradley, one of the flagraisers, reports that no copy of the photograph ever hung in their house, and that the elder Bradley "never confided the details of his valor" to his wife. Although John Bradley was reticent with his own family, his son writes: "The flagraising on Iwo Jima became a symbol of the island, the mountain, the battle; of World War II; of the highest ideals of the nation, of valor incarnate." The conquest of Iwo Jima, a tiny, barren, isolated island in the north Pacific Ocean, was needed "to provide air cover and an emergency landing strip for the B-29 bombers flying from their base in Tinian to their targets in Japan." The assault began on February 19, 1945 with a difficult amphibious assault, the Marines' specialty. According to Bradley: "Eighty thousand American boys fought aboveground, twenty thousand Japanese boys fought from below." After the 36-day battle, which resulted in over 25,000 American casualties, including over 7,000 dead, Admiral Chester Nimitz declared: "Uncommon valor was a common virtue." The younger Bradley asks: "Why did [John Henry Bradley] almost never speak of the past, and then only painfully, between long excruciating silences?" He then answers: "The real story, as Dad saw it, was simple and unadorned: A flag needed to be replaced. The pole was heavy. The sun was just right. A chance shot turned an unremarkable act into a remarkable photograph." This book is, of course, a mammoth bestseller, and I enjoyed every minute of reading it in an evening. I don't know whether it is a great book, but it is a great story, and any reader will be rewarded and inspired by spending a few hours with the fascinating story of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima.
Rating:
Summary: Poignant, masterful, honest, emotional . . . heroic
Review: Wow! I could spend hours creating a review of this wonderful book and I still would not be able to incorporate all that I feel for this powerful story. James Bradley engaged in a labor of love: he wanted to get behind the truth of his dad's mythical experience on the Island of Iwo Jima. Luckily for us readers, Mr. Bradley unearthed not only the sacred truths of his dad's harrowing experiences on the remote isle, but he introduced us to a truly humane platoon of "boys." These boys were comprised of a group of Marines and Corpsmen, heroic and valorous beyond reproach yet humanly fragile. I feel as if I lost family members in Mike Strank, Franklin Sousley, Harlon Bell and the other brave veterans that did not make it off Iwo Jima after reading of their anxiety-filled war experiences; experiences that people a generation older than these boys ever got to be could never fully appreciate. I actually lost an uncle that I never knew in Vietnam - a Marine killed at 18 years of age in 1968, sixteen months before I was born. His father, my beloved grandfather, served in the Navy in WWII and he, like Doc Bradley, was strangely quiet about his experiences. He made vague allusions to his experiences in the jungles of the Phillippines, but other than that, he was similarly mute about his war experiences. After reading Flags of Our Fathers, I am left with the same question as Doc's son . . . WHY? Doc's boy has helped me understand a very plausible reason! As for my deceased uncle - I have always wondered how he would've been had he survived Vietnam. Might he have experienced the horrible nightly recurrences of horrific war and death, as recounted by some of the vets interviewed by Doc's son? This book touched me on so many levels. I am simply grateful that I had the opportunity to read such a realistic masterpiece. The stories of the six flagraisers were not Hollywood flashy; they were poignant, yet powerful, accounts of six simple men. True heroes do not need Hollywood embellishment. Wow!
Rating:
Summary: Flags of our Fathers
Review: One of the best books of bravery; determination; grit and raw courage ever written. The hidden faces of the gallant six who raised the flag over Iwo Jima are brought to life in this truly moving, personal tribute by the son of one of the flag bearers. It was painful turning the pages knowing the ultimate fate of the young men that invaded that foreign beach so long ago. This tribute to duty; honor; country and the boys that delivered, should part of every Americans life this summer, and beyond.
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Summary: The Price of Freedom
Review: This was a superb book that really makes one appreciate thethings we take for granted here in the United States. I would not betyping at my PC now if it were not for "Doc" Bradley and the millions of other brave men and women who fought our countries wars; too many of whom never returned home to their loved ones. The book was extremely well written account of the six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and were immortalized in Joe Rosenthal's photograph. It has three basic parts: The six men's boyhood, their service experience, and the survivors lives after the war. It has number of good photographs that help visualize the content of the book even better. As has been stated in other reviews on the Amazon site, this book reads in part like the "beach" sequence of "Saving Private Ryan". The brutality of war is crystal clear here and something that affects the three survivors of the battle for the rest of their lives. The description of "Iggy", a good friend of the author's father, being mutilated by the Japanese is stomach turning. To be shot at is one thing to have your eyes put out, arms broken, head bashed in, abdomen bayoneted, tongue cut out, ears cut off and penis severed and placed in your mouth is THE most vile act I have ever read of. After reading this book it becomes very clear why Nuclear weapons were used against Japan. Not for retaliation, but because the Japanese fought with tenacity to the almost the last man. They would rather die than surrender as long as they could take ten US Marines with them. The invasion of Japan would have cost hundreds of thousands of US lives and millions of Japanese lives. "Doc" Bradley's deathbed narrative closely followed my own father's death. "He stayed alive for you" made me think of my Vietnam veteran dad dying of cancer five years ago. Like the author of the book, my father stayed alive long enough to have his whole family say goodbye to him. Thank you "Doc" Bradley for a job well done and thank you Tom Snead for a job well done.
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