Does the very anonymity of the Joe Rosenthal picture make them seem more heroic?
Rosenthal always claimed that if he’d composed it he would have ruined it because he would have said I can’t see your faces, and “Come on, fellows, clear your hands there.” You know how people do. It symbolized the whole country being heroic, rather than an individual Medal of Honor winner. Isn’t the essence of heroism, as we understand it in the United States at least, dutifulness? I think so. And also shutting up about what you did later. It’s something like you’re holding your soul in. You’re just not baring it. It’s something that is private, and if you brought it out you might bring out a lot of bad stuff with it. Ira Hayes [in a scene in the movie] says, Wouldn’t it be great if the other guys meaning the other three compadres who are dead could be here on this train, eating with silverware and all these niceties? He’s in a drunken stupor and he just says, “We shouldn’t be here.” And that sort of sums the whole thing up. He feels, I’m glad we’re alive, but we sure as hell shouldn’
