The Pacific Episode 8: Iwo Jima

IMO, this was the best, and saddest, episode of the series so far. Iwo Jima was the only Marine battle of the Pacific theater where their own casualties (killed and wounded) exceeded that of the Japanese. In the last pages of "I'm Staying With My Boys", a book about the life of John Basilone, it is mentioned that a Navy corpsman attended to Basilone's mortal wounds on Iwo Jima and heard his last words. The corpsman made a vow to never repeat those last words. While he was uncomfortable with being called a hero and humbly denied that he was, the man was a true hero in every sense of the word.

Iwo Jima was a traumatic experience for the country, and has inspired a lot of movies. The two (one from each side) from Clint Eastwood are some of the best.

I missed the last two episodes. Kinda glad b/c intense episodes are NOT best to watch before bed.

I'm not going to spoil it for you if you have a chance to watch the Iwo Jima episode. The combat scene on Iwo is only around ten minutes long. What made the episode so good to me (and sad at the same time) were the events before the battle and already knowing Basilone's story.

I found out several years ago that one of my uncles fought at Iwo Jima. I never knew, he never talked about it. What a horrific battle.