Redstate

By mbecker908 Posted in Culture — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Hat tip to the guys at Powerline.

A man in Tonawanda, NY received an incredible gift from a stranger. Some folks were cleaning out their attic and found a yellowed news clipping of a story from WWII. A young Marine on Iwo Jima had written home to his father. The story is about that letter. The young Marine was the man's father.

I've requested permission to reprint the whole article which is quoted below. The author is Lou Michael, a staff reporter for the Buffalo News and the original article can be found here.

People cleaning attic find copy of heirloom letter from Iwo Jima and send it to family
By Lou Michel NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 06/14/08 11:06 AM

The letter was sent by a son who was involved in one of the most famous battles of World War II to his father back home in Sloan.
“When we first hit the beach, I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I could feel your hand on my shoulder and I could hear you saying ‘Steady Bob, I know it’s all new to you and you’re scared, but keep a cool head and think before you do anything and we’ll come through this okay.’
“You told me when it was safe to get up and advance and you told me when to get down and stay down. A few times just as soon as you’d say ‘get down,’ I could hear the whistle of a bullet or the bursting of a mortar nearby.
“You knew when and passed it on to me to make those times close ones and not the real McCoys.”
The letter was from Robert A. Nagorski, a young Marine pouring out his heart from the fierce battle of Iwo Jima, to his father, a World War I veteran.
Both are now gone. But the letter is in the hands of the next generation, who learned of its existence only recently. It survives as a yellowed newspaper clipping published on Father’s Day 1945.
And as Father’s Day 2008 arrives Sunday, Michael A. Nagorski says he can’t get the 63-year-old letter out of his mind.
It’s as though he can hear his late father, Robert, speaking in the grateful voice of a young Marine from Iwo Jima, a turning point in the war against Japan.
The son says he was only 18 when his father died, and he did not know of the letter until it found its way to his Town of Tonawanda office from a stranger’s home in Saratoga Springs near Albany.
In the letter, Robert Nagorski pays tribute after tribute to his father, Joseph J. Nagorski, who he imagined to be at his side during the many days of the battle on the Japanese island in the Pacific.
Michael Nagorski, a history buff and Town of Tonawanda resident, says the letter to his grandfather, who died in the 1960s, has special meaning for him.
“I knew what those Marines on Iwo Jima went through. It tested their will and courage, and it was all for the freedom that we have now today,” the 56-year-old son and grandson said of the letter, which he has reread at least 30 times.
One of the most famous images of World War II was, in fact, forever captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on Feb. 23, 1945, as Marines planted the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi.
But for that moment of glory, there were countless moments of agony and fear, as evidenced in Robert Nagorski’s letter to his father.
It begins: “This being my first glimpse of combat, I needed someone to keep my mind clear and the only one who could do it was you. All this was new to me and the helping hand you have given me was here, leading the way as helpful as it always has been.
“I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. I was never so scared as I had been the first week on this island. It’s hell not knowing, or rather knowing that death may at any moment reach out and claim you.
“It’s then a fellow really needs someone who has been with him through life . . . You and God are the reasons I’m able to sit here now and give you thanks from the bottom of my heart.”
At that point, the Marine takes the reader into the action, writing that he could hear his father telling him when to be still and when to make a move as bullets and shells filled the air.
“One time, when we were stretcher-bearing on the front lines, there were eight of us behind a little knoll resting a bit before going on. A mortar hit on the top of us behind a little knoll and we were scared stiff. The first thing everyone thought of was getting away from there, so five of the fellows got up and started running.
“I was going to do the same thing, but you, there beside me, again put your hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Wait a minute, Bob, that’s not what they taught you to do. Keep cool now and think of what to do.’
“You wouldn’t let me move even though I wanted to get out of there. You knew that bunching up draws fire and wouldn’t let me move until I was moving alone . . . but still in contact with the group. Two men of the group were hit and you kept me out of it.”
In another close call when Robert Nagorski’s cheek was grazed by a ricochet, he said he fell flat on the ground “in the most open spot you ever saw.” At that point, he looked up and saw his father.
“That’s when you got sore at me. I looked up to see you standing there and you yelled, ‘What are you doing in that open spot, you fool. There’s a crater about 15 feet behind you — roll over into it. No, don’t get up and run — roll. That’s what they taught you to do.’ ”
Another time when Robert Nagorski was carrying ordnances to blow up enemy hiding spots in caves, he wrote, “you stopped me when I was almost there. No sooner than I stopped, a great piece of the cliff the cave was in came toppling down. That was just another one of the close ones.”
And so the letter continues until it ends with the son paying a final tribute to his father.
“I know you aren’t asking for anything in return for all you’ve ever done for me, except for my love and respect and they are two things you’ll always get plenty of, dad. I’ll never be able to repay you for everything, but if love and respect can do it, you will be repaid.”
Michael Nagorski says he is grateful to the Saratoga Springs residents who found the letter when they were cleaning out their attic and then went to the trouble of locating family members here.
Nagorski has shared the letter with his three sisters and his two sons. A copy of it hangs on a wall in his office and he carries another copy with him wherever he goes.
“This living piece of history will never again be forgotten,” he said.
And on Sunday, Father’s Day, when Nagorski again reads the letter, he says he will once more treasure every word of it.