Iwo Flag Raiser

[Gil Boyd]

Real shame the lad never got his true acknowledgement. He served with great distinction as a 12 year old and, regardless, should have been given a good slap on the back. Did he actually get his Purple Hearts, I thought they kept them away from him.
How many 12 year olds do you know that could carry that position today and get away with it for so long???

[SRiverrat11]

Real shame the lad never got his true acknowledgement. He served with great distinction as a 12 year old and, regardless, should have been given a good slap on the back. Did he actually get his Purple Hearts, I thought they kept them away from him.
How many 12 year olds do you know that could carry that position today and get away with it for so long???

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what Gil is saying, but no one has ever doubted the first flag raising, and the only reason the second became so famous is Rosenthal clicked that shutter at exactly the right time. The entire flag raising (first or second) would have been a small footnote in history if Rosenthal had not clicked exactly when he did.

[Gil Boyd]

No misunderstanding from this callsign. I started by saying I have a picture of the "Official" flag raising signed by LINDBERG one of the lads there, and I paid good money for it, on the basis that it was authentic.
He spent his whole life trying to right the injustice that he did raise it first. In my view, I do believe any ARMY's PR machine comes into play here, and they grabbed the next few bootnecks to raise a bigger decent flag and it was those guys that then toured the States not him or his lads.............."the originals"
Probably on the basis that they needed desperately to raise moral back home, which showed the losses on those few islands!