Posted on 10/22/2006 2:41:18 PM PDT by EveningStar
On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima...
Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island that opened on Friday in the US. While the film's battle scenes show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I saw it twice now, wasn't too impressed the first time, but after the second, it was okay.
It moves slow, it is NOT a war movie, it is a story of Doc Bradley mostly and what his experiences were, with a few shots of his son holding the interviews.
I will buy it when it comes out.
It does show Ira Hayes having a breakdown in a fair way.
The action was okay, the language was realistic, not perverse for the sake of swearing all the time like Saving Private Ryan
The flag raising scene was realistic, but they really flubbed the first flag raising and taking down the flag, some pictures show the old flag down just as the new flag went up, but in the movie the old one is carried away first.
The book spoke more of the men who raised the first flag, the movie does show the Marines and Navy reaction to seeing the first flag well, no drama
In fact, I was kind of impressed at how non chalant the flag raisings were caught on screen, not overly dramatized or over acted.
All the conversations of the photographers were right out of their own bios, they got that exact from their memories
You racist! :)
When I was in the service during the Korean War [1950-1952] I never saw an integrated unit, although I had heard that there were a [very] few around.
I have been hearing stuff about it being vaguely alluding to Iraq; did you get that impression?
I plan to see this film. Most of his films are very good. I am sure he meant to pay tribute to our troops, and did NOT mean to neglect black troops.
I like Clint Eastwood as an actor, as a director and as a man.
While he served as Mayor of Carmel, he was considered to be the "conservative."
When they were brought back to the US, they had a meeting with a treasury guy, who explained to them how the public was growing against the war, the US was going broke.
I was wondering how much was true, I never heard any of that, but it is in Bradley's book, too.
No obvious connection to Iraq, just that rambling.
"BTW: Best movies out right now are the Departed and The Last King of Scotland"
What?? No Employee of the Month????? I see an Oscar for Jessica Simpson ;-)
They're just not featured prominently, that's all...
Only time I ever hear of this is from people who weren't alive at the time. The Indian wars ended 50 years earlier. Some Generals such as MacArthur had living memory of the Indian Wars while growing up on a West Texas outpost. Not even MacArthur made any negative mention of Indians in his book "Reminiscences".
I did not read the whole article. I got a little ways into it and got angry at the victicrat BS. I almost posted a graphic of a guy playing a violin in the comments section. I also felt like saying "cry me a river."
It was enormously expensive. The Treasury actually lent out all it's silver to The Manhattan Project.
It sounds like what Glaister is saying is, if you go to the movies to watch the "black soldiers," forget about it.
"almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter...
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
This is the despicable left at their worst."
It's certainly misleading.
From "Black Service Units in the Combat Zone":
In the Iwo Jima landings, beginning on 19 February 1945, the 442d and 592d Port Companies and the 471st, 473d, and 476th Amphibian Truck Companies were assigned to the Garrison Force but attached to the V Amphibious Corps (Marine) for the assault. One port company remained attached to corps; the other went to the 5th Marine Division. One Dukw company was attached to the 13th Marine Regiment, one remained attached to corps, and the third was attached to the 4th Marine Division with the primary mission of hauling ammunition and cargo for the 14th Marine Regiment and evacuating casualties from the beaches. The 592d Port Company, divided into three groups, landed in the fourth wave and began unloading small boats as they arrived on the beach; three of its crane operators went to the 5th Pioneer Battalion where they operated eight-ton cranes on the beach. The Dukw companies, carrying ammunition and supplies between ship and shore and returning to ships with wounded from the beaches, were given full credit by the Marine Corps for their work in the Iwo Jima landings.
http://www.qmfound.com/black_service_units_in_combat.htm
Later, after his US return, the fact that he remains poor and dignified is something with all the subtlety of a turn in a punch bowl.
And there is a scene in which as he is tilling a field in the hot sun, a carload of rich lilly-white honkies pile out suddenly and barge in brusquely for a photo with Tonto-the-Hero, whose work is interrupted without warning. And they tip him a nickel, or something before again driving off, just as suddenly...
And the scene is designed to show what meagre gruel his heroism has brought him, and how honkies are insensitive.
AND SORRY, but the movie DOES show black soldiers! It's just that they didn't get suuuuuper PC with the black MIT Ph.D. computer engineer/physicist who sweeps all the Japanese defenders off the rock, that's all.
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS B.S...!!!
What they're pissed about is that the obligatory White Guilt went to a NON-BLACK MINORITY.
Out of how many troops again?
I wish I could say I were making it up..!
Oh! Same thing for Jar-Jar Binks, from the Star Wars series...they said Jar-Jar was stealth black, and that because he was RIDICULOUS, well, that makes all blacks ridiculous...
But then later the gay mafia also had to get their dig in, and claim Jar-Jar had been GAY, and a negative image of gays...
HAHAHAH....! You can't make this stuff up..!
I think the first wave had 30,000 troops and the second landing was around 30 or 40,000 more.
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