After The War

When the battle of Iwo Jima is over, all of the surviving men on the island were sent home. During the war, but after the flag raising, Mike, Harlon, and Franklin were killed in action. This death effected many people severely. In Easy company, only 27 men survived out of the 2,000 or so that started the battle.

Back home in the US, the picture was famous. People gave Ira, Jack, and Rene the name of a hero. But none of them thought of themselves as a hero. They thought the real heroes were the ones who did not return from Iwo Jima.But still they were heroes to the American people. There were memorials and many funerals that the three men went to. The government was spending a great amount of money on the War in the Pacific. So they held bond tours to get the Americans to give money to help the payment of the war. The three survivors were the main attraction to this bond. Regularly, athletes or movie stars were the main attraction, but this time, it was the heroes in the picture. Ira, who was an extremely shy person, did not like the fact that he had to speak publicly. Also, he was dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which at the time, was not a known disease. He started to drink severely after the war to get away from all of the things he saw. The men were not comfortable with this.
        Ira's drinking problem never slowed down. One night, he was playing cards with his buddy's back home in Arizona when he got into a disagreement with one of them. Ira was wasted, he couldn't stand up strait to save his life. The other two friends left to go home. Ira and his friend were still going at it. The next morning, somebody found Ira's body laying on the ground. He had died from exposure. He was too drunk to get up after being on the ground in the middle of the night, that he froze to death. Even though the war had ended, Ira's war never did. Many could say that Ira was a casualty of Iwo Jima. Because of what he saw, he couldn't control his self and he died.
      Rene Gagnon tried to work many different jobs after the war, but none of them really stuck. He ended up working as a janitor. One day, a fellow Janitor noticed that a door would not open. He pryed the door open only to find Rene laying there dead with the other handle in his hand. He died from a heart attack. Rene's life is kind of sad. He tried and tried to live a normal life like a normal person, but his wife would not let him. She loved the attention.
      Jack Bradely came off the war a changed man. He was more serious and down to business. To live a normal life, Jack wanted nothing to do with the war. He wanted to forget about it totally. Whenever somebody asked him about the war an the picture, he just said that it was a long time ago and he had forgotten about it. Jack lived a normal life just as he wished. Jack died in 1994. He was remembered in his community as an honorable funeral home owner.
      The war changed the life of thousands of people. It changed the world forever, and made the US smarter and closer together. Everybody who died, and everybody who lived, will be remembered as heroes if they like it or not.