There is a statue in Washington D.C. based on Joe Rosenthal image of the men raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi. In the statue, the men are 32 feet tall. The guns are 18 feet long. The flag pole is 60 feet.
I’m sure someone thought this was a compliment to the men. More probably, that someone thought it was a compliment to war: these men are surreal, figments of fantasy, and war itself is an epic adventure of unreal proportions. That’s probably right– that’s how they sell young people– who actually have to go fight the war– on war. You will be bigger than life. You will be unreal.
The monument is an insult. The men were our size. They were us. What they accomplished was not epic or magical or unreal: they sacrificed their lives based on a perception of integrity in their leaders.
I’m pretty sure that the men who actually raised the flag on Iwo Jima would not be pleased with this monument. This monument is what we think they think we think of them. I’m not kidding. It’s a monument to the people who put up the monument, the guilty adulation of the those who did not have to actually set foot themselves on a battle field.
I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds like “Flags of Our Fathers” is about this discrepancy too. It’s not an argument against the possibility of the necessity of war. It’s an argument against the idea that there is something noble and glorious about killing fellow human beings, for whatever reason.
But those who adore the culture of war must always retell the story so that military actions seem purposeful, honorable, and rational.
In fact, a good deal of war is the collision of failed strategies.