don't forget Photo op too.

Originally Posted by: wpr 

So what really happened? According to accounts by Rosenthal, which are backed up by movie footage of the event - Joe Rosenthal hiked up the dormant volcano Mount Suribachi with Pfc. Bob Campbell and Staff Sgt. Bill Genaust (both photographers for the Marine Corps). Part of the way up the mountain the group met Sgt. Lou Lowery, a photographer for Leatherneck magazine and a few more Marines. Lowery told them that the flag was already raised but they should go on up for the view. When Rosenthal and the others got to the top of the mountain, Rosenthal tried to find the men who originally raised the flag for a group shot with the already raised flag. When he was unsuccessful in finding them he moved on to focus his attention on a group that was getting ready to put up a second flag. Although the exact details aren't known, the Marine command had decided to replace the first flag with a larger one. Rosenthal originally tried to capture both flags in motion (one going up and the other down) but didn't have any luck getting the angle he wanted. At that point Rosenthal moved about 35 feet away for a wider view of the scene. Because of the slope of the ground and Rosenthal's short stature the ground blocked some of his view so he piled up rocks and a discarded Japanese sandbag to stand on. Other photographers were gathered in the same general area, including Staff Sgt. Bill Genaust who was shooting movie footage. Rosenthal snapped his photo as other photographers shot as well.

It is Staff Sgt. Genaust's video footage that shows how events unfolded and that Rosenthal was not staging the flag raising, but the obviously posed "Gung Ho" group shot.

The most iconic image of Americans at war (and the display of pride with a flag-raising) was a "re-do" , lol I would not have wanted to be there, though, as concurrent and subsequent events proved. There was no "fake" in any of that, or the image itself, for that matter. They raised that flag in a very dangerous place and time. Both times.

Originally Posted by: dfosterf 

Strength
70,000 U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy corpsmen and others, and U.S. Army Air Forces airmen and nurses
Casualties and losses
6,821 killed
2 captured but recovered[2]
19,217 wounded[1]

Japanese
Strength 22,060[1]
21,844 killed[1]
216 taken prisoner[1] some of whom were captured because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled.