News and Updates

Good Eats for Good Luck!

Good Luck Foods for the New Year

The New Year is a time for fresh starts, new beginnings and noble resolutions; people vow to have a better year than the previous one and wish for prosperity and luck. It was traditionally thought that such luck could be achieved with the consumption of certain foods, and so on New Year’s Day around the globe, a whole gamut of auspicious foods are eaten. If you’re looking to increase your good fortune come January 1, take a look at lucky foods here in the States and around the world.
American Traditions

Legumes

Legumes are eaten for a financially successful year. They not only resemble coins, but they swell up when cooked, just as you would want your fortune to swell. A traditional Southern dish is called Hoppin’ John, a combination of black-eyed peas and rice (also lucky as it symbolizes abundance), but lentils are also a tasty alternative.

Greens

Green: the color of money. Though collards are the green of choice in the southern states, kale, chard and turnip greens are a tasty way to ensure an economically prosperous New year. You could even do like the Dutch- and German-Americans do by eating cabbage or sauerkraut. Remember, the more you eat, the greater your fortune will be!

Cornbread

The old Southern expression goes “peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold”. The symbolic origins of this treat have little ambiguity: eat the golden-colored bread and your wealth will naturally increase. As an added treat, there’s no better way to sop up the juices left behind from your black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Pork

Pigs are considered good luck because they root forward, symbolizing progress (with this logic, lobster is to be avoided since it moves backwards). In the Italian tradition, the fatty meat is also linked to a fat wallet. It is therefore natural that pork —and especially ham in the United States—would be a delicious staple of the New Year’s table.

Checkout our download section for IRS information on the biomass tax credit.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day. Enjoy being with family and friends. Maybe do some grilling, spend some time on your hobby or get some well deserved rest. Whatever you do please do not forget to honor those that made it possible. Times may be a little tougher than this time last year, but you still live in the greatest country in the world. A country worth fighting for…........

Six
Boys And Thirteen Hands…

Each year I am hired to go to Washington , DC , with the eighth grade class
from Clinton , WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly
enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some special
memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our
trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest
bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous
photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the
American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima ,
Japan , during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed
towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
statue, and as I got closer he asked, ‘Where are you guys from?’

I told him that we were from Wisconsin . ‘Hey, I’m a cheese head, too!
Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.’

(James Bradley just happened to
be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He
was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed
away… He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I
videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share
what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible
monuments filled with history in Washington , DC , but it is quite
another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

‘My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on
that statue, and I just wrote a book called ‘Flags of Our
Fathers’ which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller
list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

‘Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is
Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all
the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another
type of game. A game called ‘War.’ But it didn’t turn out to be a
game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands.
I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people
who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You
guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and
19 years old – and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.

(He pointed to the statue) ‘You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire.
If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and
looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph… a
photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection
because he was s cared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won
the battle of Iwo Jima . Boys. Not old men.

‘The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike
Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They
called him the ‘old man’ because he was so old. He was already 24.
When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say,
‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew
he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I
say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

‘The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
Arizona … Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima . He went into
the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a
hero’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my
buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’

So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together
having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the
beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira
Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain
home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of
32 (ten years after this picture was taken).

‘The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin
Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin’ hillbilly
boy.. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took
two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung
wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them
Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’ Yes, he was a fun-lovin’
hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the
telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the
Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into
the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

‘The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived
until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s
producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little
kids to say ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada
fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he
is coming back…’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually,
he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell ‘s soup.
But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.

You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone
thinks these guys are heroes, ‘cause they are in a photo and on a
monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley
from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200
boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and
screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

‘When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a
hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said,
‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the
guys who did not come back. Did NOT come
back.’

‘So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima ,
and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on
Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My
voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your
time.’

Suddenly,
the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking
out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not
a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us
to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice

Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War
on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for
our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those
still in murderous unrest around the world.

STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else’s sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America .

REMINDER:
Everyday that you can wake up free, it’s going to be a great
day.

One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is
not mentioned here is . . that if you look at the statue very closely
and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. When
the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply
said the 13th hand was the hand of God.

Great
story – worth your time – worth every American’s
time

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day. Enjoy being with family and friends. Maybe do some grilling, spend some time on your hobby or get some well deserved rest. Whatever you do please do not forget to honor those that made it possible. Times may be a little tougher than this time last year, but you still live in the greatest country in the world. A country worth fighting for…........

Six
Boys And Thirteen Hands…

Each year I am hired to go to Washington , DC , with the eighth grade class
from Clinton , WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly
enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some special
memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our
trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest
bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous
photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the
American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima ,
Japan , during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed
towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
statue, and as I got closer he asked, ‘Where are you guys from?’

I told him that we were from Wisconsin . ‘Hey, I’m a cheese head, too!
Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.’

(James Bradley just happened to
be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He
was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed
away… He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I
videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share
what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible
monuments filled with history in Washington , DC , but it is quite
another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

‘My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on
that statue, and I just wrote a book called ‘Flags of Our
Fathers’ which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller
list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

‘Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is
Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all
the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another
type of game. A game called ‘War.’ But it didn’t turn out to be a
game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands.
I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people
who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You
guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and
19 years old – and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.

(He pointed to the statue) ‘You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire.
If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and
looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph… a
photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection
because he was s cared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won
the battle of Iwo Jima . Boys. Not old men.

‘The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike
Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They
called him the ‘old man’ because he was so old. He was already 24.
When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say,
‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew
he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I
say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

‘The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
Arizona … Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima . He went into
the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a
hero’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my
buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’

So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together
having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the
beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira
Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain
home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of
32 (ten years after this picture was taken).

‘The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin
Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin’ hillbilly
boy.. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took
two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung
wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them
Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’ Yes, he was a fun-lovin’
hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the
telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the
Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into
the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

‘The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived
until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s
producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little
kids to say ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada
fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he
is coming back…’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually,
he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell ‘s soup.
But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.

You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone
thinks these guys are heroes, ‘cause they are in a photo and on a
monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley
from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200
boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and
screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

‘When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a
hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said,
‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the
guys who did not come back. Did NOT come
back.’

‘So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima ,
and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on
Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My
voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your
time.’

Suddenly,
the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking
out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not
a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us
to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice

Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War
on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for
our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those
still in murderous unrest around the world.

STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else’s sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America .

REMINDER:
Everyday that you can wake up free, it’s going to be a great
day.

One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is
not mentioned here is . . that if you look at the statue very closely
and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. When
the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply
said the 13th hand was the hand of God.

Great
story – worth your time – worth every American’s
time

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day. Enjoy being with family and friends. Maybe do some grilling, spend some time on your hobby or get some well deserved rest. Whatever you do please do not forget to honor those that made it possible. Times may be a little tougher than this time last year, but you still live in the greatest country in the world. A country worth fighting for…........

Six
Boys And Thirteen Hands…

Each year I am hired to go to Washington , DC , with the eighth grade class
from Clinton , WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly
enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some special
memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our
trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest
bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous
photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the
American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima ,
Japan , during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed
towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
statue, and as I got closer he asked, ‘Where are you guys from?’

I told him that we were from Wisconsin . ‘Hey, I’m a cheese head, too!
Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.’

(James Bradley just happened to
be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He
was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed
away… He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I
videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share
what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible
monuments filled with history in Washington , DC , but it is quite
another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

‘My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on
that statue, and I just wrote a book called ‘Flags of Our
Fathers’ which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller
list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

‘Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is
Harlon Block. Harlon was an
all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all
the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another
type of game. A game called ‘War.’ But it didn’t turn out to be a
game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands.
I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people
who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You
guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and
19 years old – and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home
never even would talk to their families about
it.

(He pointed to the statue) ‘You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire.
If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and
looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph… a
photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection
because he was s cared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won
the battle of Iwo Jima . Boys. Not old men.

‘The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike
Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They
called him the ‘old man’ because he was so old. He was already 24.
When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say,
‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew
he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I
say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

‘The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
Arizona … Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima . He went into
the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a
hero’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my
buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’

So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together
having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the
beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira
Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain
home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of
32 (ten years after this picture was taken).

‘The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin
Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin’ hillbilly
boy.. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took
two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung
wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them
Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’ Yes, he was a fun-lovin’
hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the
telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the
Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into
the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

‘The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived
until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s
producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little
kids to say ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada
fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he
is coming back…’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually,
he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell ‘s soup.
But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.

You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone
thinks these guys are heroes, ‘cause they are in a photo and on a
monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley
from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200
boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and
screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

‘When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a
hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said,
‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the
guys who did not come back. Did NOT come
back.’

‘So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima ,
and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on
Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My
voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your
time.’

Suddenly,
the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking
out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not
a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us
to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice

Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War
on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for
our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those
still in murderous unrest around the world.

STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else’s sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America .

REMINDER:
Everyday that you can wake up free, it’s going to be a great
day.

One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is
not mentioned here is . . that if you look at the statue very closely
and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. When
the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply
said the 13th hand was the hand of God.

Great
story – worth your time – worth every American’s
time

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day. Enjoy being with family and friends. Maybe do some grilling, spend some time on your hobby or get some well deserved rest. Whatever you do please do not forget to honor those that made it possible. Times may be a little tougher than this time last year, but you still live in the greatest country in the world. A country worth fighting for…........

Six
Boys And Thirteen Hands…

Each year I am hired to go to Washington , DC , with the eighth grade class
from Clinton , WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly
enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some special
memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our
trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest
bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous
photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the
American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima ,
Japan , during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed
towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
statue, and as I got closer he asked, ‘Where are you guys from?’

I told him that we were from Wisconsin . ‘Hey, I’m a cheese head, too!
Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.’

(James Bradley just happened to
be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He
was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed
away… He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I
videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share
what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible
monuments filled with history in Washington , DC , but it is quite
another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

‘My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on
that statue, and I just wrote a book called ‘Flags of Our
Fathers’ which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller
list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

‘Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is
Harlon Block. Harlon was an
all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all
the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another
type of game. A game called ‘War.’ But it didn’t turn out to be a
game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands.
I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people
who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You
guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and
19 years old – and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home
never even would talk to their families about
it.

(He pointed to the statue) ‘You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire.
If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and
looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph… a
photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection
because he was s cared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won
the battle of Iwo Jima . Boys. Not old men.

‘The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike
Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They
called him the ‘old man’ because he was so old. He was already 24.
When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say,
‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew
he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I
say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

‘The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
Arizona … Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima . He went into
the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a
hero’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my
buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’

So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together
having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the
beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira
Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain
home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of
32 (ten years after this picture was taken).

‘The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin
Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin’ hillbilly
boy.. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took
two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung
wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them
Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’ Yes, he was a fun-lovin’
hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the
telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the
Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into
the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

‘The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived
until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s
producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little
kids to say ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada
fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he
is coming back…’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually,
he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell ‘s soup.
But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.

You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone
thinks these guys are heroes, ‘cause they are in a photo and on a
monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley
from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200
boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and
screamed, without any medication or help with the pain.

‘When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a
hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said,
‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the
guys who did not come back. Did NOT come
back.’

‘So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima ,
and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on
Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My
voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your
time.’

Suddenly,
the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking
out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not
a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us
to live in, freely, but also at great
sacrifice

Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War
on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for
our freedom.

Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those
still in murderous unrest around the world.

STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else’s sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America .

REMINDER:
Everyday that you can wake up free, it’s going to be a great
day.

One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is
not mentioned here is . . that if you look at the statue very closely
and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. When
the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply
said the 13th hand was the hand of God.

Great
story – worth your time – worth every American’s
time

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day. Enjoy being with family and friends. Maybe do some grilling, spend some time on your hobby or get some well deserved rest. Whatever you do please do not forget to honor those that made it possible. Times may be a little tougher than this time last year, but you still live in the greatest country in the world. A country worth fighting for…........

Six
Boys And Thirteen Hands…

Each year I am hired to go to Washington , DC , with the eighth grade class
from Clinton , WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly
enjoy visiting our nation’s capitol, and each year I take some special
memories back with me. This fall’s trip was especially
memorable.

On the last night of our
trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest
bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous
photographs in history — that of the six brave soldiers raising the
American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima ,
Japan , during WW II.

Over
one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed
towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the
statue, and as I got closer he asked, ‘Where are you guys
from?’

I told him that we were from Wisconsin . ‘Hey, I’m a cheese head, too!
Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a
story.’

(James Bradley just happened to
be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He
was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed
away… He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I
videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share
what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible
monuments filled with history in Washington , DC , but it is quite
another to get the kind of insight we received that
night.)

When all had gathered around, he reve rently began to speak. (Here are his
words that night.)

‘My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on
that statue, and I just wrote a book called ‘Flags of Our
Fathers’ which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller
list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind
me.

‘Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is
Harlon Block. Harlon was an
all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all
the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another
type of game. A game called ‘War.’ But it didn’t turn out to be a
game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands.
I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people
who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You
guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and
19 years old – and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home
never even would talk to their families about
it.

(He pointed to the statue) ‘You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire.
If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and
looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph… a
photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection
because he was s cared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won
the battle of Iwo Jima . Boys. Not
old men.

‘The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike
Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They
called him the ‘old man’ because he was so old. He was already 24.
When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say,
‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew
he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I
say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.’

‘The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from
Arizona … Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima . He went into
the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a
hero’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my
buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off
alive?’

So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together
having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the
beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira
Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain
home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of
32 (ten years after this picture was taken).

‘The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin
Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin’ hillbilly
boy.. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took
two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung
wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them
Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.’ Yes, he was a fun-lovin’
hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the
telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the
Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into
the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile
away.

‘The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John
Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived
until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s
producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little
kids to say ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada
fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he
is coming back…’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually,
he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell ‘s soup.
But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want
to talk to the press.

‘
You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone
thinks these guys are heroes, ‘cause they are in a photo and on a
monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley
from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200
boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and
screamed, without any medication or help with the
pain.

‘When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a
hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said,
‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the
guys who did not come back. Did NOT come
back.’

‘So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima ,
and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on
Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My
voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your
time.’

Suddenly,
the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking
out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt
words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not
a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero
nonetheless.

We
need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us
to live in, freely, but also at great
sacrifice

Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War
on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for
our freedom.

Remember
to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those
still in murderous unrest around the world.

STOP
and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else’s sacrifice.

God Bless You and God Bless America .

REMINDER:
Everyday that you can wake up free, it’s going to be a great
day.

One
thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is
not mentioned here is . . that if you look at the statue very closely
and count the number of ‘hands’ raising the flag, there are 13. When
the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply
said the 13th hand was the hand of God.

Great
story – worth your time – worth every American’s
time