Flags of our Fathers.

My campaigning is almost at an end. I could have put up lawnsigns today but I’m content to let my handful of remaining ads do the heavy lifting.

Since my wife went off with a number of church women to a retreat today I took the afternoon to watch Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers. Claudia isn’t interested in gore and this movie has that in spades but like Tom Hank’s Private Ryan it was shown in the service of honesty not exploitation. Apparently Eastwood plans on filiming another movie about the fighting on Iwo Jima from the Japanese point of view. I’ll be sure to watch that movie too.

I knew the story well enough that I wasn’t confused by the cuts back and forth in time. As I left Jim and Carol, also from our church told me that her family had known one of the flag raisers, a fellow who still lives in the Twin Cities. Like me they stayed through the movie credits which showed original war photos from the island. Jim told me that the theater should let every native American into the movie free. I understood what he meant. Adam Beach performance as Ira Hayes a Pima Indian was wrenching.

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