Mt. Olive Seniors by Dixie Kuykendall

The North Jefferson News



The following speech was given by Harold Jarvis, a member of the Mt. Olive Senior Center:

“The United States flag is the greatest emblem, (with the exception of the cross of Jesus Christ), to ever be raised over land or sea or in space. To those who love her, she is the emblem of our national soul, announcing who we are and what we stand for, namely, freedom, duty and justice.

She flies over a nation matured by war; a civil war concocted by greedy and jealous men in which 500,000 men died in a useless cause and by wars outside her borders all over the world which sane men could have avoided, but sadly did not.

She stood bravely and defiantly declaring that the people of the world deserve more than slavery or dictatorship.

Many men and women gave the ultimate price — some gave limbs, eyesight, blood and are scarred to this day. Many gave great spans of time out of their lives. Many mothers gave sons and daughters, wives gave husbands, children gave daddies.

These are reasons that we salute her; why we say the pledge of allegiance. This is why she is displayed in our churches, court rooms, our city squares, school yards and even by our president’s desk.

Joe Rosenthal, a man I knew in 1945, made a photo of her being raised by six marines on Iwo Jima This hill, they said, was 560 feet high and was the cauldron of a sulfuric volcano. It was located some five or six hundred yards behind the position which I was hunkered down in when not on call to attend the wounded.

They put this flag up first as a little old bitty 24-by-36-inch flag, but it wasn’t big enough to be noticed, so they sent and got a bigger one from an offshore ship. They brought it up and replaced the little one with the big one and this is when Joe took this picture.

After the war, they used this picture to create a 40 ton edifice which is one of the centerpieces of the Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. It is the largest bronze edifice in the world and is known as the United States Marine Corps Memorial.

More than 6,000 would die on this island and 12,500 would be evacuated as wounded.

Yes, this 84-year-old geezer still salutes the flag and in doing so, I salute them!”