Plot summary

The picture of five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the U.S. flag after the exhausting, bloody conquest of barren volcanic island Iwo Jima, the first piece of sacred home soil the Japanese must cede, becomes iconic too for the Pacific campaign at the time, giving false sense of victory being nearly won. A complex structure of flashbacks interlaces three phases in their lives. First the battle, involving countless comrades, many of whom fell like the Japanese defenders. Then, the survivors being commandeered as the face of a homeland tour to sell the public war bonds to refill the empty war chest, a luxury reprieve from battle, but also a guilt paradox. Finally the after-war, mainly trying to fit in civilian life again, until the present of the narrator, son of one of them.—KGF Vissers