Flags of Our Fathers & Letters of Iwo Jima

‘Flags of our Fathers’ is a movie directed by Clint Eastwood and takes place during World War 2 about the Battle of Iwo Jima. The film circulates around the five Marines and the lone Navy solider who raised the American flag on Mt. Suribachi. Although the photo was taken when they raised the replacement flag, since the military wanted to keep the original so politicians would not take it and put it in their home as a shrine. There were only three survivors out of the six that raised the flag, so they were shipped back to the United States.

When they got back they travel the United Stated shaking people’s hands and telling them about the photo in order to raise money for the war. Throughout the trip Ira is constantly getting drunk and eventually gets shipped back to his unit as he wished since he made the General very angry. The remaining two soldiers continue to travel and raise money. After the war ends, all three finally get to go home. Although two of the soldiers struggled with their life after the war, since one went on to become a school janitor and the other hitchhiked across the country and could not escape his past.

While the other soldier bought a funeral home and ran it until he passed away, he was the only successful one. All three saw each other one last time at the unveiling of the Marines War memorial, which was a statue of the flag raising on Mt. Suribachi. ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ was also another movie about World War 2 involving Battle of Iwo Jima directed by Clint Eastwood, except this film shows you the other side of the war. It shows you what the Japanese did to prepare for the war and shows there perspective of it.

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Although it mainly focuses on a few soldiers and one particularly, who was a just a young man who was a baker who got drafted. It starts off when Japanese soldiers were digging trenches on the beach then the General comes and changes everything. He tells to start digging tunnels for what they thought would be a better defense. Since the Japanese fleet was destroyed he did not think it was necessary to have trenches on the beach. Then the United States invaded Iwo Jima, they quickly over took the beach. Shortly after, they quickly took over all of Iwo Jima.

The Japanese soldiers knew it was over so some started committing suicide but the young baker refused to and got away trying to save his own life. He then travels all the way across the island where he meets the general, who saves his life. In returning the favor, the general asks the baker to burn all his military documents and basically gives him a chance to go back to his family while he leads one last attack. He then burns all the documents like he was told but decides to put all the letters in a bag and buries them in the dirt so someone can find them.

Some years down the road they are found and that is how the story is told from the Japanese point of view. ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ both take place during World War 2 which was from 1939 to 1945 but the battle both movies focuses in on took place on February 19th, 1945. The message Flags of our Fathers is that no matter who you are you can always make a difference. All it takes is faith, consistency and hard work. The flag raising was also very patriotic and it gave many Americans hope that we had won the war and it was over.

Although they failed to realize what the Americans had to go through in the war, they just saw the picture and realized everything was fine and came up with their own story on what they think happened. While in ‘Letters of Iwo Jima’ the Japanese soldiers were also very patriotic I believe. The film shows you that you should never disrespect your country regardless of what type of situation you are in. You should always fight, stand up, and have pride for your country and never take the cowards way out. In the film ‘Flags of our Fathers’, I believe there is one bias.

This is that the people of America mainly just paid recognition to the three soldiers who raised the flag and seemingly forgot about everyone else fighting in the war. Yes I am well aware of that the movie focuses on that flag raising, but they even said so in the movie that people saw the picture and assumed victory and came up with their own story about it. At first while watching the movie while reading the questions I thought it was pretty obvious that the two marines and lone navy corpsmen were the heroes of the movie but later on I found out that there were no heroes.

In the final scene of the movie, the son of one of the soldiers states; there is no such thing as heroes and the soldiers were uncomfortable being called heroes, since heroes are something we create and need. It is a way for us to understand what is almost incomprehensible. How people could sacrifice so much for their buddies. They may have fought for their country but they died for their friends with a man in front and a man beside them. If we wish to truly honor these men, we should remember them how they truly were.

After I heard that statement he made, it really opened up my mind and made a lot of sense. I strongly believe in that statement, they were just regular guys doing what they ordered to do. Then enemy in the film is clearly Japan since there is no other option. That is the country we are fighting in the war against. Yes, I believe both countries were treated fairly and there was no misrepresentation of history. I think Japan got what was coming to them and is a perfect example of the old saying “what goes around comes back around”.

Since they attacked China several times and even had the courage to attack the United States when they bombed Pearl Harbor. So it is not United State’s fault they were beaten so badly in the movie because quite frankly, they started it but could not back it up. In ‘Letters of Iwo Jima’, it is hard to determine if there are any biases and I do believe that there is not any. Also, the heroes of this movie were also hard to determine. Although, I believe there were two different heroes on the Japanese side of the battle.

I think the first hero was General Kuribayashi, since he saved Saigo who was the young baker’s life three different times. The first time being when he said unpatriotic things about Japan to his friend then the Captain overheard and almost killed him before the General stopped him. The second came when the same captain tried killing him again for not obeying orders when he left Mount Suribachi and the General saved him again. Then the third time was when the General told him to stay behind and burn all the war documents and letters while he led one last attack.

Obviously, the second hero I believe was Saigo since he chose to bury all the letters instead of burning them, therefore people could know what really happened on Japans side of the battle because if had not have buried them, nobody would have never knew. The enemy is obviously the United States since they are the ones Japan is trying to defend their country from. Japan was treated fairly but they could not match up well with the United States since they started bombing all these countries and thought they were invincible and lost their Navy Fleet, which was the main reason why they lost the battle so quickly and easily.

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