Iwo Jima Reunion of Honor

Iwo Jima gathering fosters blessings of friendship and peace at scene of horrific sacrifice, says Laura Leppert.

On March 26, 1945, after 36 days of ferocious battle between American and Japanese forces, the island of Iwo Jima was declared secure, after nearly 7,000 Americans and over 22,000 Japanese soldiers had perished.  It was a costly and courageous victory for the United Sates, and the remarkable bravery displayed on that battlefield led Adm. Chester Nimitz to declare, "Among the Americans serving on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."

Recently, Laura Leppert accompanied four Iwo veterans from Dallas, Texas to Iwo Jima for the 19th Reunion of Honor.  Thanks to the efforts of an 94-year-old Iwo veteran, Lt. Gen. Lawrence Snowden, Americans and Japanese convene one day each year to jointly honor our soldiers' sacrifices.  This tiny, 5-mile-long island is the only place in the world where formerly bitter battlefield enemies come together as strong allies in the pursuit of global peace in a memorial service for bereaved families, veterans and government and military leaders.  The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, flew from Washington, D.C. to Iwo and exhorted this austere gathering of 300 Americans and Japanese to "continue to draw stronger together, not as enemies but as partners."

Laura said "I know very little about my father's service on Iwo Jima.  I have letters he wrote to my grandmother, describing the night he was wounded.  They were later published in the newspaper of his small Ohio railroad town.  Like most of his generation, when he returned from the war, he did not speak of his service.  But before he passed away, he asked me to remember his service in World War II, and with that resolve, I co-founded the Daughters of World War II."

During the last three reunions, the Dallas-based nonprofit has escorted nine survivors of this horrific battle back to the black sands where they lost so many of their countrymen united in preserving our freedoms.  We have done so at no cost to the veterans because of the generosity of private donors.

I have watched as veterans walked the beaches where they landed nearly 70 years ago, with closed eyes, everything comes back to them - the deafening sounds of the rifles, the screams and the stench of death.  I think how brave they were - and how brave they are, to return to this battlefield, this burial ground.  As they walk the hallowed ground where 300 Americans and 12,000 Japanese are still missing in action and presumed entombed, they pay tribute to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, those who will remain forever young.  Returning allows these courageous men to put the battle behind them, to bring closure to a necessary duty and to find peace, and also new friends to carry on their legacy,

Dallas resident Clyde Jackson traveled with Daughters of World War II and met Kathy Painton, whose father was killed in the first wave on Feb. 19, 1945.  She never knew her father, and her young widowed mother had only a letter from the government thanking her for her sacrifice.  Jackson was in the same division, same regiment, same battalion, even the same company as her father.  Jackson knew the man, the father that Painton had never known.  And that is what Daughters of World War II is all about--connecting one generation to another.

The Iwo Jima Reunion of Honor also forges new friendships between Americans and Japanese.  Under the brilliant Iwo sun, with the silence broken only by the songbirds, I was introduced to Tetsuro Teramoto, president of the Iwo Jima Association of Japan.  We exchanged business cards and bowed.

He told me how his father had been killed on Iwo while his mother was pregnant with him.  I assured him, "It is our duty to carry on the memory of our fathers and the sacrifices made on this island by both of our nations, so the world will never forget and our peoples will remember the blessing of peace and friendship."

(Laura Leppert is president and co-founder of Daughters of World War II and a board member of the Iwo Jima Association of America.  Her father was an Iwo Jima Marine, Fifth Marine Division, 26th Regiment, 1st Battalion.  Her email address is Laura.leppert@daughtersofww2.org.)