War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pacific War on film.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And as always, as always, always, I've got Sean McIver with me. Sean, how's it going?

Howdy? All right. Sean's trade. It's hot. It's hot. Yes, we're recording this in the summer

2021 and it's hot. Such as Texas. Well, all right.

We are in the middle of a three-part miniseries on movies about the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Last time we talked about the old classic black and white John Wayne movie Sands of Iwojima.

And this week, we are going to talk about one of two movies that came out in the year 2006,

both directed by Clint Eastwood, meant to be companion pieces, one of which talks about

Iwo Jima from the American perspective and the other which talks about it from the Japanese

perspective.

So we're going to talk about the first of the two,

the one from the American perspective, and it's called Flags of Our Fathers, 2006. And we'll get

into this a little bit more, but it's really not strictly just about the Battle of Iwo Jima.

It's not like Toro, Toro, Toro, which is about Pearl Harbor, or Midway, which is about the

Battle of Midway. It really is as much, if not more, about the lives of the flag raisers, you know,

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