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Iraqi Iwo

Michael Yon’s Iraqi Iwo Jima shot, Muslims and Christians replacing the cross on top of St. John’s in Baghdad.

 

Yon, Thanks and Praise:

I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. 

The Iwo Jima shot was about victory, American soldiers prevailing and raising an American flag on Japanese soil where a hard fight was still underway.  When I rode with American soldiers in the invasion of Iraq, the rule was: no American flags.*  It wasn’t about conquering Iraq or defeating the Iraqi people, it was about liberating them from Saddam’s tyranny. 

The toppling of Saddam’s statue seemed like the iconic moment, but it proved only to be the first frame. The Iraqi people had been so bitterly divided and traumatized by Saddam, and since then have been played by their own leaders and the powers around them, that a bloodletting was inevitable. It would have happened sooner or later, with or without us there. But American soldiers have been able to control the worst of it, keeping it to a slow burn rather than the explosion of much greater magnitude it could have been, and could still be. Maybe they have a chance.

When the flag was raised on Iwo, there was a lot of fighting and dying still to be done, but that image became a symbol of hope and determination. Unlike the Saddam shot, an image of tearing down the old evil, Yon’s captured the Iraqis putting something up, restoring something good, themselves.  There is still a lot of fighting and dying ahead, but here’s an image of hope and determination, a sign that victory might not be too far off.    

Support Yon and his magnificent work here. I did.

* The 3rd ID elements I rode with and encountered at that time didn’t fly American flags. The soldiers wore them on their uniforms.

Topics: Iraq

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:05 am on Thursday, November 8, 2007

9 Responses to “Iraqi Iwo”

1. Robert Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 12:59 am

   You gonna run Yon’s pic in the Herald?

2. Chuck Adkins » A Sign of Hope in Iraq. Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 1:36 am

   [...] So Far: Power Line, The Sundries Shack, Confederate Yankee, Wizbang, Jules Crittenden, Wake up America, Classical Values and UrbanGrounds, Instapundit, The Belmont Club, Blue Crab [...]

3. Blue Star Chronicles Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 3:20 am

   Michael Yon Photographs Thanks and Praise

   Michael Yon’s Iraqi Iwo Jima shot, Muslims and Christians replacing the cross on top of St. John’s in Baghdad.
   Jules Crittenden calls the photo above ‘Iraq Iwo’. The well-known photo of the toppling of the statue of Saddam …

4. Blue Crab Boulevard Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 9:12 am

   Thanks And Praise

   (Photograph Michael Yon, used by permission)
   A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St…

5. Sister Toldjah Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 9:40 am

   Quote of the week (possibly even quote of the year)

   “It really comes down to this: you are determined to see Iraq become a permanent hellhole because you hate Bush. And we are determined to see Iraq become a success, because we want to live.”
   – IraqPundit, addressing the anti-war left…

6. sisu Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

   One picture is worth a thousand blogposts

   While the MSM slept, Michael Yon — the self-employed, reader-empowered embedded journalist blogger reporting from the front — captured the spirit of the age in one amateur photograph that has touched the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens in

7. sisu Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 2:22 pm

   “There is hope here, and it lives in the thousands of stories about this place that are never told”

   While the MSM slept, Michael Yon — the self-employed, reader-empowered embedded journalist blogger reporting from the front — captured the spirit of the age in one amateur photograph that has touched the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens in

8. Sissy Willis Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

   Fighting with “hope and determination” for “something good” against “the old evil.” It sounds downright American.

9. Elroy Jetson Says:
   November 9th, 2007 at 12:18 am

   Thank you Michael Yon.
   God Bless the iraqi people. May they be the leading light of civilization in this part of the world.

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