On the plane to and from the company's annual meeting, I watched the film "The Flag of the Fathers", directed by Eastwood, which tells the story of the US military landing on Iwo Jima in Japan during World War II. The photo of the three protagonists: Ira, Doc, and Rene planting the American flag on the commanding heights of Iwo Jima was sent back to the United States, causing a huge news effect. Politicians struggling to raise a seventh installment of the war debt found hope in this photo. As a result, the three heroes were recalled to the country to participate in the parade again and again, cheering for the raising of bond funds. Because Ira knew that the flag in the photo was not the first flag planted and that the real hero was not him, she was so ashamed and angry that she was sent back to the battlefield in advance. She was also discriminated against by the Indians and finally froze to death in the cowshed; Rene and his fiancée were loved by the whole people, and became janitors to support their families after the national frenzy passed; Ira closed the funeral home after the war, and spent her life thinking about Iggy, a comrade-in-arms who died tragically in the trenches of the Japanese army.
The story was learned and written by Ira's son after his father's death, and his father's life was only on his deathbed to tell the picture of them playing in the sea with Iggy and his comrades like children after planting the flag.
Heroes are created because they are needed. Ira and his comrades are just ordinary people. They may fight for the country, but more for the comrades who share weal and woe. This is their real and ordinary story.
This movie is very similar to Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's halftime battle and is well worth watching.
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