In honor of all those who fought and died in World War II,

                                         especially those valiant Marines on the island of Iwo Jima.

dirty and grey was the february morn: the wraths of two worlds ramming,
engulfing,
encircling one tiny knoll...four Men who all the world spied.

there writhed, within those eight titan hands, a force, a passion, a spirit.
wild and untamed, its wings flapped in the gales fo that fresh and ancient chaos, its
four mortal saviors adding a final coup.

struggling against the petrifying glance of Time,
there They still stand, silhouetted
upon that rocky mount of commitment, upon those crags of sacrifice,
They have striven vainly forever forward,
refusing stubbornly to yield.

how foreign yet so familiar is the setting, the place and manner in which They posed.
united together in a struggle of arms
and legs against the squalls of Their time,
like atlases of old They held Their own, never shrugging,
as years adorned them with a Sisyphean glow.