Did you ever fall in love with a place you visited so much that you could not resist bringing home a small piece of it?

  The exact opposite:

  In the 1980s when I was on active duty and aboard ship on one of several Western Pacific Deployments (WesPac) that I did, we anchored off the shores of Iwo Jima (Japanese for “Sulphur Island”), which in World War Two was the site of the largest battle that the US Marines have ever fought in history, beginning on 19 February, 1945 and spanning into late March 1945. There are more than one battlefields on Iwo, many of which have been left untouched; rifles, helmets, boots, vehicles, artillery pieces and other military artifacts could still be seen strewn about, very few of which were completely intact even on the day they fell, but exposed to the elements of salty spray, blistering heat and weather, they are mere remnants and ghosts. Those war-torn areas are off limits to anyone entering them, both due to the dangers of unexploded ordnance and munitions and as a silent memorial to the 6,000+ American men and the 20,000+ Japanese men who died there.

  Iwo Jima is dominated by a large mountain known as Mount Suribachi, the slopes of which were the location of what was at the time a simple flag raising, planting the American flag for the first time on actual Japanese territory during World War II after continuous Japanese successes throughout the Pacific theater. Along with the air and sea battle of Midway Island, the US Marines launching an amphibious assault on Iwo was part of the “Island-Hopping Campaign” that signaled a turnaround in the fortunes of the war. The journalist’s photo of that flag raising not only became the most famous photograph of World War II for the Allies, it also symbolized then and continue to symbolize some meaning out of the meaningless of war. Five US Marines and one US sailor using makeshift materials fighting against stiffed winds and still under fire of the Japanese raise the flag after many days of heavy fighting that killed and wounded thousands of men on both sides. The battle was still not over at that point; many more men would die and be wounded before the American victory was finally made.

  Iwo was strategically significant because of its location in the Pacific Ocean, its airfields provided not only a launching and recovery point for many types of aircraft, but also was an emergency safe haven for crippled aircraft that could not make it all the way back to mainland bases in other parts of the Pacific. The Japanese had used the location to their advantage against the allies, after the battle that advantage shifted to the hands of the Americans.

  The remote island has been largely uninhabited since the end of the war, and receives few visitors in comparison with other places in Asia and the Pacific. However, it has become traditional for some people who go there to collect small vials of the sulfur-rich sand (of which the island is made) in yet another commemoration of the battle, the war, and the casualties. This may or may not have started after the 1950 John Wayne movie “The Sands of Iwo Jima”, which was released as a patriotic tribute to the US Marines and to what happened there during the war.

  Iwo Jima is just one of the few places I’ve been to in my life that have special meaning for me; this particular one is among those places where US Marine Corps history was made. Being a Marine myself, I felt the pride in the honor and the sense of sacrifice that Iwo holds.

  On the day that I was there, many of my fellow Marines and sailors were eager to grab themselves some of the sand of Iwo Jima, A thick dark sticky type of sand that is made up of volcanic rock and other minerals. Personally, I didn’t want it, and therefore did not collect any. I do not know how to express what I thought or felt about the practice of collecting a small plastic bottle of sand from that place. While I did not condemn others who do it, it’s just that for me it was not something I wanted to do, my reasoning was that since I was not one of the men who had fought in the battle and who sacrificed during the battle or because of the battle, I did not deserve that souvenir.  I have never regretted that decision.

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