Eastwood Asked to Respect Iwo Jima Sites

[Railroad]

Below is an excerpt from an Associated Press story found on the YAHOO! News pages.

Eastwood Asked to Respect Iwo Jima Sites

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=420 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=center><TD width="40%"><!-- Yahoo TimeStamp: 1112792072 --><!-- recent_timestamp 1112792072 8056 secs not stale 28800 secs -->2 hours, 14 minutes ago
</TD><TD noWrap align=right width="60%"><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width="1%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width="1%"> </TD><TD noWrap width="99%"> Entertainment - AP</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

<!-- TextStart -->

TOKYO - Tokyo's nationalist governor had one request for Clint Eastwood before the American film director begins his next project, about the World War II battle at Iwo Jima: Respect the fallen soldiers.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="1%" align=left border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width="99%"><!-- ult --><CENTER><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=150 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD><CENTER>
AP Photo </CENTER>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></CENTER><!-- start 2005 02/23 18:02 expire 2005 03/02 18:03 --></TD><TD width=5> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

During their 45-minute meeting Wednesday, Shintaro Ishihara told Eastwood that thousands of Japanese soldiers who died on the island in one of the war's bloodiest battles remain unaccounted for more than a half century later.



Ishihara asked Eastwood to avoid "sacred" sites of the dead if he films on the island, Tokyo metropolitan government spokesman Katsumi Kumagai said. Eastwood replied that he would "absolutely not" trample on Japanese feelings, he said.

Eastwood was in Tokyo for a stopover after visiting Iwo Jima, which is 700 miles south of Japan's capital but is governed by Tokyo. He is expected to begin filming an adaptation of the book "Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima" later this year, but has yet to ask Tokyo's permission to shoot on the island, Kumagai said.

 

[Larry Gude]

I wonder if Clint intends this to be...

...the real story?

For anyone who cares, the image we all know of Iwo was not the initial raising of the flag; it was a staged re-enactment for the cameras.

As for the rest, if he does accurate battle footage it will make Saving Private Ryan look like a Disney flick. It will be too much to watch.

I first learned about military decorations including the medal of honor from the apendix of a book about Iwo. There were pages and pages of men who had specifically dove on hand grenades to save their buddies.

Iwo was pretty bad.

 

[Railroad]

Yes, Larry, I've heard those things, too. Apparently Clint is doing something based on a book entitled, "Flags of Our Fathers."

 

[Vince]

My father was at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Never talked about it.

 

[Larry Gude]

My grandfather says...

My father was at Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Never talked about it.

...thank you to your dad.

He flew B-29's.

 

[Mikey1979]

Tokyo's nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara

I'd tell him to go F##k himself, we wern't the ones who started it.