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‘Flags of Our Fathers’ Tells Story of Flagraisers & Their Heroes
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
There could not be a more perfect time to help people meditate on the true cost of war and to recognize the sacrifices of the soldiers who have borne the consequences of war.
On the eve of Veterans Day, as people’s minds are full of the anguish of the Iraq war, director Clint Eastwood’s movie Flags of Our Fathers arrives with the message that when fighting is necessary most men will do their best, not for the glory, but, in most cases for their fellow soldiers.
That may be the highest motivator and the highest morality of any conflict; and we have seen it displayed in many of the men and women now serving in the Middle East. So many of the images coming from that region have negatively influenced public opinion; most infamously the prison abuse photos. There have not been comparably powerful photos that help us see where and how any victories have been achieved.
In 1945, after three years of sacrifices by the American people, the news from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific was apparently not enough to motivate them to help their government cover the enormous financial costs of the war. Unexpectedly, a photo taken by an AP photographer at the battle of Iwo Jima on Feb. 23 hits the front page of every paper in America and sparks a renewed sense of mission and pride.
Taking advantage of this heightened patriotism, the government orders the men who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi to report back home for war bond rallies. Only three are alive to answer their country’s call: Rene (pronounced wren-ee) Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) and John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe). The other three were killed on Iwo Jima just days after the flag-raising.
Rene and Ira are Marine infantrymen and “Doc” is a Navy corpsman. What they experience in the three days before the flag-raising haunts them in unexpected ways during the fund raising tour. Plunging into the black sands of the “burnt pork chop” island, the men are quickly and cruelly initiated not only in the brutal fatality of mortar and machine gun fire from hidden bunkers, but the misery of death and injury from the misdirected fire from the invasion fleet.
By day it’s taking ground inch by inch—by flame thrower, hand grenade and bayonet; by night it’s holding ground in freezing fox holes that invite sudden, savage attacks. Dying before their eyes are friends and leaders. They are the heroes, Rene tells the adoring, incomprehensible crowds that press around the men.
Too soon it feels like a circus to the men uncomfortable with the adulation, the soft accommodations, the parties and the staged flag-raisings on fake mountains illuminated by fireworks to rally the people to give “a mountain of cash” for war bonds.
While Rene and Doc dutifully soldier on city after city, Ira can no longer control the feelings of anger and shame at being called a hero: “All I did was try not to get shot.”
Firmly apolitical, this moving adaptation of James Bradley’s bestseller is an outstanding achievement by Eastwood and screenwriters Paul Haggis and William Broyles, Jr. With fierce honesty that shuns sentimentality, Eastwood makes it clear where war’s true honor resides. Rated R for violence.
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