Flags of Our Fathers -- James Bradley

<b>#1 <i>NEW YORK TIMES </i>BESTSELLER - The perfect gift for Father's Day, this is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America</b> <p/>In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima--and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag. <p/>Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever. <p/>To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In <i>Flags of Our Fathers</i>, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island--an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man. <p/>But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo--three were killed during the battle--were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's f