Inside the Hero Factory

[Contrary1]

Not so much a movie review as a commentary on the war in Iraq, and the Bush Administration's screw ups when trying to manufacture heroes. A good read.


"Clint Eastwood's 'Flags of Our Fathers' asks hard questions about the way governments sell our wars.

Oct. 23, 2006 issue - Clint Eastwood's tough, smart, achingly sad "Flags of Our Fathers" is about three anointed heroes of World War II—three of the men who appeared, backs to the camera, in the legendary Joe Rosenthal photograph of six soldiers hoisting the American flag on Iwo Jima. It was an image that electrified a nation at war. The military wanted these men to be larger than life to raise desperately needed money for the war effort by selling war bonds. So the government, sensing, as one character says in Eastwood's film, "that a picture can win or lose a war," plucked them off Iwo Jima, where the 35-day battle was still raging (and where the other three men in the photo had been killed), and paraded them in front of cheering crowds. It was all for a good cause, but it was pure PR, and it ate away at the insides of these media-proclaimed heroes, who believed that the men who deserved the glory were the ones who had given their lives.

Watching Eastwood's harrowing film, which raises pointed questions about how heroes, and wars, are packaged and sold, it's hard not to think his movie is a commentary on today. Images of Jessica Lynch pop into your brain. And when Sgt. Mike Strank (Barry Pepper), the unit's leader, is killed by friendly fire, your thoughts turn to Pat Tillman, the ex-football star whose death was initially rewritten to suit the mythical role the military, and the media, had decided he must play. "When people ask me if this movie is applicable to today," Eastwood told NEWSWEEK, "I say, 'Well, you know, everything is ... Everyone's distorting things, just as they distorted them then'."

Eastwood wasn't thinking about Lynch when he re-created Iwo Jima's brutal battles on the black sands of Iceland, but he acknowledges the aptness of the analogy. "That poor girl. She was just a teenager. The military and their publicity people decided she had to be Wonder Woman, gunning down tons of people with her machine gun, when she didn't fire a shot. They desperately wanted her to be that." Eastwood, the former Republican mayor of Carmel, Calif., is no dove, but he does question the premise behind the American undertaking in the Middle East. "I'm not one of those idealistic people who think democracy has to be for everyone," he says. "That's naive on our part. I don't know if they want democracy."

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15264215/site/newsweek/from/RS.1/

[NYCGirl]

1. Fascinating! NT

[Democrat 4 Ever]

6. My ex-father in law was a WWII vet who was present when that

photo was taken. He wasn't one of the ones raising the flag but he fought (and wounded - two purple hearts) with that unit. He always said that it was a staged photo op. That the flag was raised but wasn't caught on film. (He also claimed that some of the men who are in the photo weren't part of the group that actually raised the flag the first time.) That's when the powers to be went back, rounded up the soldiers and had them re-raise the flag for posterity.

The FIL was a gung ho Marine who loved everything about war - ack! His stories were retold and retold over the years at every chance - with more "Japs" killed by his bayonet with each retelling. He was one of those who's life peaked during WWII and wanted to relive it daily. He saw nothing but good in war and he scared the hell out of me. (My stepfather was also a veteran who served under Patton in Europe and you couldn't get him to talk about the war for any reason. He died and I always wondered what had happened to him over there - he was a kind, loving, handsome man who was completely broken) Because the FIL was such a cheerleader for any and all wars (thought Viet Nam was just peachy keen and anyone who thought differently was just a wuss) I gave come credence to his assertion it was staged for the war effort. He wouldn't criticize just for the hell of it.

Does that take away from the effort of those guys on that South Pacific island, no, not at all. But it does make me question every damn thing my government tries to push as the truth.

[happyslug]

8. The First or Second Raising of the flag?

The picture is of the Second raising, The first raising was NOT photographed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima
http://www.iwojima.com/

Raising the Second flag as the first one is taken down (Military cutesy only one national flag can be flying atone time, so when the larger second one went up the first one came down).


Preparing the First Flag to be raised:


The firs flag raised (This is as close as you get to a picture of the FIRST Flag going up):


The above picture are from this site, of the leader of the FIRST Rasing:
http://www.ci.richfield.mn.us/Services/CableTV/Lindberg/Lindberg.htm

[Cooley Hurd]

2. Jessica Lynch was supposed to be this war's "Ira Hayes..."

...but she wouldn't go along with it. That makes her an even greater hero in my eyes!:patriot:

[trof]

4. Ira Hayes. Remember this?

The Ballad of Ira Hayes
Written by Peter LaFarge
Recorded by Johnny Cash on 3/5/64
Number 3 - Country Chart

Ira Hayes,
Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Gather round me people there's a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land

Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
'Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin' water stopped

Now Ira's folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man's greed

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Then Ira started drinkin' hard;
Jail was often his home
They'd let him raise the flag and lower it
like you'd throw a dog a bone!

He died drunk one mornin'
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
But his land is just as dry
And his ghost is lyin' thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. I was very afraid, when I saw the ads for this movie

that it was going to be extremely PRO-war, but this gives me hope that it may, instead, tell some truth about the horrors of war and its selling.
And, if anyone wants to see a very good movie that exposes the evil of war in a sometimes subtle way, watch "A Very Long Engagement". Its a very telling story.

[trof]

5. I thought of Ira Hayes too.

Tony Curtis played him in the movie "The Outsider".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055270/

[pretzel4gore]

7. in ww2, the gov was legit....

and indeed the grandpa of the present cinc was actually a sympathiser of hitlers; which just makes the stolen 2k election, and this preposterous 'war' against a hapless 3rd world country (well two 3rd world countries, if including afghanistan) all the less comparable to the battles of ww2 (this absurdity is made even more so when one considers the difference beteween the 2 theatres of the 2nd world war, with germany benefitting from open sympathy from the west's rightwing types, including prescott bush, linberg, duke/windsor etc; while japan, which eastwood focuses on in his movie, was to suffer nuke attacks on its civilians, in punishment)
eastwood works out of the same comfort zione that guys like rove exploit, and goddammit he should be told to stop. everyone forgets that eastwood threatened mike moore last year...great going clint! :sarcasm:

[NYCGirl]

9. Even Michael Moore says that Eastwood was JOKING, BTW. NT

[pretzel4gore]

10. so he never asked mike to 'make my day'?

lol
thanks for correcting this. being wrong about something is dreary, and while the repukwa don't mind being dreary, wrong is wrong, so thanks for the heads up....
;)

[NYCGirl]

11. Nope, I'd even venture a guess that they admire each other's work.

You're very welcome.
:hi: