Last American Survivor of Iwo Jima Is Gone

Steve is an avid fan of the Pacific theater of WWII. He reads and rereads, after collecting the whole of them, all of one author's works on the history. He knows which ships, which generals, which islands, which things happened on. W.E.B. Griffin is the author, and I'm assured the details in the main are correct. Bits of conversation to send the plot along, perhaps are not word for word, but on the whole it stands as  history.

So when he read that headline today, he passed it on to me. That last surviving American soldier was 105!

I had to pause to wonder what it must have been like to hold those memories all those years. Or whether they were covered over and hidden as long as possible. As a non-veteran, merely military-adjacent through family members who don't talk about their WWII or Vietnam experiences, I can only imagine. Did the Iwo Jima survivors consider themselves heroes, bearing their memories with pride, or do their best to wipe their mental slates of all their experiences? Did age filter in and erase the harshest memories? The most heroic ones? All of them indiscriminately? None at all?

My memories are those of a typical baby boomer in America. I've heard some tales, watched some movies, seen the statue (or photos, or reenactments) of the flag raising to proclaim victory, and have an inkling of the cost on both sides. I'm content not to have been there, have no wish to travel there, or by now pretty much anywhere overseas. Perhaps if I were wealthy I'd have different thoughts on more traveling, but I can, through the wonders of technology, get visual images of practically anywhere on the globe without the expense or inconvenience. Somebody else's travel experiences remain colored by my own preconceptions and imagination. 

As of now, no further questions about that last soldier's experience will be answered. By the time this post is finished, I doubt I'll be raising any questions on the topic either, but it is a moment to stop, think about the little we know, and recognize that all history passes this way, either preserved more or less accurately in some story somewhere, or not. It is up to us now to assign importance, learn whatever lessons we can be bothered with, and continue... or not. 

Meanwhile the sun is shining, the wind is blowing the next weather system closer, yard storm cleanup calls, as do requirements for new plantings just delivered in today's mail, and the next nap calls. There is still always the next thing.