Flags of Our Fathers

[Kesava Mallela]

Here is a Question: What can be more disastrous and harrowing than organizational politics? Turns out to be...Organizational politics in Military during War. Every platoon wants to do glamorous work of winning and posing for that iconic photograph of pulling down Saddam or the "Mission Accomplished" party thrown by Bush on the aircraft carrier just after pulling down Saddam. But Wars are full of unglamorous work and someone ought do it.

Flags of our Fathers is about this iconic photograph of WWII. The photo was shot on the 5th day of a 35 day war on the Island of Iwo Jima in Japan. Both the media and the government portrayed it to be the war-winning photograph. The flag-raisers in the photograph became government's propaganda tools to raise money. The photo is a result of two ironic twists. One, many platoons in the army want to be on mainland Japan to pose for the finishing photographs than get stuck on the sulfur stinking island of Iwo Jima. The second, a second platoon enacts the flag raising act and the first platoon's picture never got captured well. Further twists include...some of the people in the picture were wrongly identified. Three of the six people in the photograph even die by the end of 35 days.

Now comes the the BIG but. But, the media and the government never even cared that it was not the winning photograph. Everyone told their own story of the picture. It gave people hope and government money. It in fact turned out to be a war-winning photograph. The three people alive were THE war heroes in the public eye, though they never actually thought themselves as heroes.

Clint Eastwood tells this fascinating story behind the iconic photograph in a very engaging way never even showing the face of the enemy. He made a second movie "Letters from Iwo Jima" to tell the same story from the Japanese perspective. Cant wait to watch the letters.

Highly Recommended.

~ Kesava