Flags of Our Fathers

While I liked the premise of the movie Flags of Our Fathers, I thought it was a little convoluted, taking away from the overall impact of the movie. The movie focuses mainly on John Bradley, a Navy medic and two of his comrades, Marines Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes, three of the six men in the famous photograph of the lifting of the flag on Iwo Jima. The movie focuses on how the U.S. Government used these men to sell war bonds to fund the war effort, despite the facts that the photo was of the second flag going up and one of the original flag-raisers wasn’t mentioned.

Several themes predominate in the movie, one being that heroes are made by those at home and not by those on the battlefield. The men on the battlefield are too conscious of their own shortcomings and lack of courage, and many felt that they were just doing what anyone else would have done in their place. Most “heroes” feel awkward at being singled out and labeled for special treatment. The movie shows how the image of the heroes was created by the press and the government and then manipulated and used for the war effort. While the movie tended to be cynical and judgmental, it also tried to show how such hero worship is essential in times of war.

Flags of Our Fathers also demonstrates how powerful the media is in shaping our perceptions of war. One photograph changed the mood of the nation and rallied support for the war. In a similar way, though with an opposite effect, one picture of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a prisoner in the head turned American sentiment against the war in Vietnam. Recently, the photos from Abu Ghraib prison turned American sentiment sour on the war in Iraq. In addition, the constant reporting of suicide bombings in Iraq has caused the approval rating for the war in Iraq to plummet. What is happening in the media today is very similar to what happened 35 years ago. Even though we were winning the war in Vietnam, public perception was radically shaped by the media and political leadership, causing many to see the war as hopeless and meaningless. This is happening today as well, as the media and certain political leaders are turning victory into defeat.

Much of what is said in the media is either misleading or incomplete. Americans live on sound bites, making a coherent explanation and understanding of a complex military operation impossible. We don’t have the patience to dig in and find out what is really going on, so we just blindly believe what the news media and politicians tell us. Much of the rhetoric being thrown around today is pathetic and ultimately harmful to the United States. Wars today are lost, not because our military is weak, but because our media and political leaders are morally weak and misguided.

I am not writing this to defend the war in Iraq but merely to point out that the current mood and public discourse is clouded and misguided. My challenge is not to support the war or call for withdrawal but to stop listening only to the media and allowing your perceptions to be shaped by the news and political sound bites.