REMEMBERING – AT 5:29 P.M. ET:  Today marks the 65th anniversary of the invasion of Iwo Jima by United States Marines.

And, as this is being written, Marines are fighting in Afghanistan.

Iwo Jima was one of the iconic battles of World War II, etched in our memory through the photograph of Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi.

It was a battle in which the United States suffered more total casualties than our enemy, Japan, although almost the entire Japanese garrison was destroyed.

Iwo Jima was a Japanese island before World War II.  The mayor of Tokyo was the mayor of Iwo Jima.

One of the tragedies of Iwo Jima is that the island proved only minimally useful to the United States after it was taken.  War plans had changed.  Strategies were altered.  But none of that minimizes the sacrifice of the Marines who took the island.  Marine and Navy fatalities totaled more than 6,000.

Iwo Jima was returned to the Japanese in 1968.  Americans are permitted to visit once a year for remembrance. 

Reader Claude Williams has visited Iwo Jima and writes about it at this evening's edition of The Angel's Corner.

February 19, 2010