Iwo Jima

Veterans Day is a red-letter day on a few restaurant calendars.  Mission BBQ will observe Veterans Day on Monday with a "Freedom isn't Free" event. The Glen Burnie restaurant, which has announced the opening of a second location in Perry Hall , will offer a complimentary sandwich "to all those who have honorably served in our Nation's military and armed forces. " Charm City Cakes, the Baltimore bakery home to Food Network star Duff Goldman , has created an Iwo Jima cake for the event that replicates the iconic Joe Rosenthal photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on top of Mount Suribachi, immortalizing the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II .  The cake-cutting will take place following the singing of the National Anthem at noon.

William L. More, a retired Exxon marketing representative who fought during World War II with the 4th Marine Division in some of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific, died Saturday of respiratory failure at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic Home. He was 90. Nearly 40 years would pass before William Lynn More could bring himself to talk about Iwo Jima, the 36-day battle in 1945 for a rugged, uninhabited eight-square-mile Pacific island of gray volcanic sand and rock, where 6,800 Americans died and 26,000 were wounded.

ATLANTA -- Atlanta businessman Cal Atwood, who spends his days in pristine offices, remembers the filthy horrors of the Battle of Iwo Jima as if it happened yesterday.This weekend's big Atlanta reunion of Iwo Jima veterans officially began last night. The guest of honor, former Navy corpsman George Wahlen of Roy, Utah, arrived today to participate in the gathering of 1,400 vets and their families at the Atlanta Airport Marriott.It was Mr. Atwood's idea to make Mr. Wahlen, 70, the guest of honor, because the Atlantan saw what Mr. Wahlen did to earn the the nation's highest award.

Veterans Day is a red-letter day on a few restaurant calendars.  Mission BBQ will observe Veterans Day on Monday with a "Freedom isn't Free" event. The Glen Burnie restaurant, which has announced the opening of a second location in Perry Hall , will offer a complimentary sandwich "to all those who have honorably served in our Nation's military and armed forces. " Charm City Cakes, the Baltimore bakery home to Food Network star Duff Goldman , has created an Iwo Jima cake for the event that replicates the iconic Joe Rosenthal photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on top of Mount Suribachi, immortalizing the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II .  The cake-cutting will take place following the singing of the National Anthem at noon.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Kitano Point, Bloody Gorge and Mount Suribachi are not names one hears much anymore. Even the heroes who died in those places, men such as Charles Joseph Berry and John Harlan Willis and Donald Jack Ruhl, are remembered mainly by their families and the other men who journeyed with them into a little patch of hell called Iwo Jima.But yesterday, at the 50th anniversary of the battle, a couple of thousand old warriors, many accompanied by their wives, assembled at the foot of the famous Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to receive tribute from a commander-in-chief, four Medal of Honor recipients and a crowd that stood in silent awe."

CAMP VERDE, Ariz. -- Fifty years ago on Iwo Jima, two things happened to an 18-year-old Marine named Elmer Bechtold that have bothered him all of his life.One he can't do much about. A Japanese rifle round smashed his upper left arm, putting him in the hospital for nine months. The wound shortened the limb by 4 inches and causes him perpetual pain.The other incident wounded his conscience. He took a dead Japanese soldier's wallet.But earlier this month, Mr. Bechtold, 68, arranged for the wallet and its contents to be given to Japanese veterans joining about 880 U.S. veterans on Iwo Jima yesterday to observe the 50th anniversary of the savage battle.

BECAUSE J. Carter Brown once called the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Va., "kitsch," a couple of conservative Republican members of Congress are belatedly calling for his head.Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon of New York and Sen. Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas want Mr. Brown, director emeritus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, to resign as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts. The commission, incidentally, angered Marine Corps supporters -- including the two congressmen -- by approving an Air Force monument near the famed Iwo Jima statue, which portrays Joe Rosenthal's historic photograph of six Marines straining to plant the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi during World War II.The two lawmakers' charge is ludicrous.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS -- Paramount Home Entertainment -- $29.99 Few war photographs are as iconic as the picture of five U.S. Marines and one Navy corpsman hoisting a flag into the air on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in February 1945. Clint Eastwood's homage to those men shows the galvanizing effect that Associated Press photo had on a demoralized nation -- as well as the shameless propaganda campaign U.S. officials mounted to exploit the three surviving flag-raisers. Flags of Our Fathers leaps back and forth between horrific scenes of carnage on the island and the surreal carnival that Navy corpsman John "Doc" Bradley (Ryan Phillippe)

Joe Rosenthal, the Associated Press photographer whose dramatic picture of servicemen raising a giant, wind-whipped American flag atop Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi during World War II became an indelible image of courage and fortitude, has died. He was 94. Mr. Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his photograph, died Sunday morning at an assisted living facility in the Northern California community of Novato. Taken on Feb. 23, 1945, the photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman marked the Marines' costliest battle of the war. In the fierce fighting on the small island 750 miles south of Tokyo, 5,931 Marines died, a third of all Marines killed during World War II. The photo's publication to widespread acclaim in newspapers across America helped instill pride and hope in Americans yearning for an end to the war. Within months, the flag-raising image had been engraved on a 3-cent stamp and emblazoned on 3.5 million posters and thousands of outdoor panels and car cards that helped sell more than $200 million in U.S. war bonds with the slogan "Now All Together."

Robert L. Bunting Sr., a veteran of World War II who was wounded at Iwo Jima and later became a tile setter, died of lung disease April 17 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. He was 87 and lived in Hamilton. Born in Baltimore and raised on Forrester Avenue, he attended a public vocational school and assembled aircraft at the old Glenn L. Martin plant in Middle River. He joined the Marine Corps during World War II and served in the Pacific. He was wounded in the left arm during the Battle of Iwo Jima and spent two years at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Ten years ago, my husband John and I moved into a retirement condo and met our new neighbors. They were a nice, older couple - typical Baltimoreans with a passion for family, Maryland crabs and the Orioles. I still remember the day my husband rushed in the door with news that would elevate Chick Serio's status from that of "typical Baltimorean" to superhero. "Chick was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action on Iwo Jima!" John said. "We're living across the hall from a war hero!"

On the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps, I found myself in a waiting room at the hospital. A man about 55 years old walked by wearing a camouflage coat and a military hat. I instinctively asked him about his service and wished him a happy Veterans Day. He told me he wears that particular hat for his father who fought at Iwo Jima. Not long after, we were both standing beside his father's hospital bed. Tears ran down the face of the man in the camouflage coat. He was proud of his dad and what he had done in service of our country.

Anthony C. Canova, a retired vending machine mechanic and World War II veteran, died Oct. 23 from complications of a stroke at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Hamilton resident was 88. He was born and raised in the former 10th Ward of Baltimore. He attended city public schools until the seventh grade, when he went to work to help support his family. Before enlisting in the Navy, he was a mechanic for Canteen Corp. During World War II, Mr. Canova served with the Seabees, the Navy's construction battalion, from 1943 until being discharged in 1946.

Robert L. Bunting Sr., a veteran of World War II who was wounded at Iwo Jima and later became a tile setter, died of lung disease April 17 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. He was 87 and lived in Hamilton. Born in Baltimore and raised on Forrester Avenue, he attended a public vocational school and assembled aircraft at the old Glenn L. Martin plant in Middle River. He joined the Marine Corps during World War II and served in the Pacific. He was wounded in the left arm during the Battle of Iwo Jima and spent two years at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

William Robert Keyser, a retired railroad worker who served as a medic during the battle of Iwo Jima, died of sepsis Aug. 4 at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic Home in Hunt Valley. The longtime Perry Hall resident was 83. Known to his friends and family as Bob, Mr. Keyser was born in Baltimore and graduated from City College in 1942. After graduating, he went to work for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the auditor's office, overseeing freight accounts. A year later he joined the Navy and spent several months stationed in the United States before leaving for the Pacific with the 4th Marine Division.

Charles Sumner Dawson, a pharmaceutical researcher and World War II veteran who lived most of his life in Baltimore County, died of heart failure Thursday. He was 87. Mr. Dawson was born in Scranton, Pa., the eldest of three children. His father, an executive for an electric company, died when Mr. Dawson was 5 years old, after a bout with the flu. His mother remarried a few years later. Mr. Dawson grew up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, referred to as the "main line," and later graduated from Lower Merion High School.

William L. More, a retired Exxon marketing representative who fought during World War II with the 4th Marine Division in some of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific, died Saturday of respiratory failure at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic Home. He was 90. Nearly 40 years would pass before William Lynn More could bring himself to talk about Iwo Jima, the 36-day battle in 1945 for a rugged, uninhabited eight-square-mile Pacific island of gray volcanic sand and rock, where 6,800 Americans died and 26,000 were wounded.

William Robert Keyser, a retired railroad worker who served as a medic during the battle of Iwo Jima, died of sepsis Aug. 4 at Bonnie Blink, the Maryland Masonic Home in Hunt Valley. The longtime Perry Hall resident was 83. Known to his friends and family as Bob, Mr. Keyser was born in Baltimore and graduated from City College in 1942. After graduating, he went to work for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the auditor's office, overseeing freight accounts. A year later he joined the Navy and spent several months stationed in the United States before leaving for the Pacific with the 4th Marine Division.