Brad's+Book+2

= media type="custom" key="14060124" width="108" height="108" align="right"media type="custom" key="14060730" width="100" height="100" align="right"media type="custom" key="14060986" align="right"media type="custom" key="14061206" align="right"media type="custom" key="14061264" align="right"media type="custom" key="14061418" align="right"media type="custom" key="14061640" align="right"Flags of Our Fathers =


 * === Jack Bradley- Jack would find a way to make Jack Puffer laugh during those tense times when the Dominican nun was on the prowl in the classroom. Jack Bradley was great to be around. pg.23 ===
 * === Franklin Sousley- Marion Hamm remembers that "Franklin was just fun, a tremendous guy. I never knew of him being a bad boy. We laughed so much with him always telling jokes." ===
 * === Harlon Block- Harlon was a good helper. He always completed his chores without complaint. He took orders well, fit in as part of the family. pg.32 ===
 * === Ira Hayes- "Ira was a quiet guy," Dana Norris confirmed. "Such a quiet guy." ===
 * === Rene Gagnon- When asked to describe Rene or to recall any remarkable incidents, Jules could only say what people would say about nondescript Rene all his life: "He was a nice guy." ===
 * === Mike Strank- "He was the finest man I ever knew," said one platoon-mate who went on to become a national business leader. "The best of the best," said one who went up Suribachi with him, "The kind of Marine you read about, the kind they make movies about," said another. ===

Figurative Language:

 * === I dialed the numbers, often with my heart in my throat. ===
 * === I knew we'd get to the top of that mountain, eventually -- but how many men was it going to chew up? ===
 * === Doc would spend hours hunched down someplace on deck, organizing and reorganizing his Unit 3 like the newspaper boy he had once been, sitting and folding the papers on the curb. ===

Setting:

 * === The island (Iwo Jima) is a trivial scab barely cresting the infinite Pacific, its eight square miles only about a third the mass of Manhatan Island. Iwo Jima is a very small place to have hosted such a big battle. pg.6-7 ===
 * === The commandant began speaking of Iwo Jima, in a low voice, as being "holy land" and "sacred ground." "Its's holy ground to both us and the Japanese," he added thoughtfully at one point. ===
 * === I stooped down and picked up one of the shards of rock that littered the surface. Examining it up close, I realized it was not a rock at all. It was a piece of shrapnel. Half of a century old, they still formed a kind of carpet here. pg.7 ===

Theme:

 * === These marines were held to strict standards of discipline and physical endurance. But they were no longer mere recruits now; they were certified leathernecks. A year from their first action the boys of Spearhead were already a brotherhood. ===
 * === The boys of Spearhead had been expertly trained for ten months. They were a team, ready to fight for one another. These boys were bonded by feelings stronger than they would have for any other humans in their life. ===
 * === "Semper Fidelis- always faithful- it meant you were faithful to the guys around you," is how Easy's Donald Howell put it. "If you didn't have those guys around you in battle, you didn't stand a chance. With another marine around you, you knew you had a chance." ===