This year I joined thousands of people to celebrate July 4th beside a living photograph. Mom, Dad and husband all went down to the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia to watch the big July 4th fireworks being set off from the Washington, D.C. Mall. It was a spectacular spot to see the show with views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument (the needle, as my mother adoringly calls it) as a backdrop. It was enough to get any gruff anti-war protestor or burned-out war vet in a patriotic mood. Even more moving was what was immediately surrounding us—bleached white tombstones in Arlington Cemetery and the towering Iwo Jima Memorial. This famous statue, (you know, the one depicting figures of marines erecting a bronze flagpole) is an icon of American history. It was even simulated in a photo after 9-11 showing firefighters erect a flag into the mounds of twisted metal at Ground Zero. But did you know this 32-foot-high sculpture was inspired by a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph? I didn’t, and it exists practically in my backyard. It sort of blends in, maybe even takes a back seat, to the biggies in this area–the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial etc. Yet, this one should be really special to us who love photography because it is based on a real moment in time in 1945, captured with a camera.

The photo was taken at one of the most historic battles of World War II. Iwo Jima, a small island located 660 miles off the coast of Tokyo, was the last territory that U.S. troops recaptured from the Japanese. The statue reveals five marines and a navy hospital corpsman raising the American flag as a signal of the successful takeover of the island. This was extremely significant because it led to the end of the war.

Today, in the Arlington park, a real cloth flag actually flies from the 60-foot bronze flagpole 24 hours, seven days a week. The memorial served as an inspirational gathering on July fourth…some of us even broke into patriotic song. Maybe the park goers felt the energy from the statue’s history even they though they may have not known it was derived from an amazing photo taken more than 50 years ago. I believe images, old or new, can have palpitable power and energy.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Alysha Sideman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.