This is 4 out of 12 of my Memorial Day Tribute Pictures for the second day.

-This is the memorial at Washington, D.C. to pay tribute to those that fought on the Japanese held island of Iwo Jima during WWII. The monument is based of the famous flag raiseing done on Mount Suribachi on the island.

-Iwo Jima is a volcanic island in the shape of a trpozoid. Sue to it being volcanic, the beaches and most of the island was covered in sooty, black sand. This was an extremely large problem to the invading forces due to th fact that the tanks would get stuck in the very loose sand. This also made it difficult to dig foxholes.

-Some do not know the story beind the flag raising this depics. The famous picture that was taken was actually the second flag to be raised. The first was also photographed, but not widely known. The first flag was deemed too small, and later a larger flag (96-by-56 inch) was raised.

-The famous potograph was taken by the associated press photographer, Joe Rosenthal.

-Out of the 6 men in the famous picture (by Rosenthal) three died afterwords (Michael Strank, Franklin Sousley, and Harlon Block).
---Strank was killed six days later when a shell, likely fired from a U.S. destroyer, tore his heart out. Block died from a motor round a few hours after Strank. Sousley was killed by a sniper a few days before the island was captured.

The First Flag Rasing can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F.....ag_Raising.jpg

The Second, more famous, Flag Raising can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:W.....ag_raising.jpg

And a short video clip shot by Bill Genaust can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:R.....ma_(color).ogg