User:Souvlaki14/sandbox

John Bradley rarely spoke of the flag raising, having seen it as an insignificant event in a devastating battle. He rarely talked to people about it and spent most of his life trying to escape the attention he drew from raising it. Bradley only spoke to his wife once about the raising once during their 47 year marriage on their first date and he seemed very uninterested with it during the conversation.here. His daughter Barbara said that “Reading a book on Iwo Jima at home would have been like reading a playgirl magazine…it would have been something I had to hide.” here. Bradley refused to talk to reporters and avoided them at all costs. Throughout his life, the press would contact his home to ask for interviews and he trained his wife and children to give excuses such as he “was on a fishing trip in Canada.” Even during the filming of the movie the Sands of Iwo Jima in 1949, Bradley told his wife to tell the townspeople that he was “on a business trip” in order to avoid attention that would be drawn to him.” Despite his reluctance to talk to the media, family, and friends about the incident, he told his parents in a letter shortly after the battle that raising the flag was “the happiest moment of my life.” In 1985, during the only interview Bradley ever conducted about the flag raising, Bradley said he would not have raised the flag if he would have known how famous the photo would have become. He stated that he did not want to live with the pressures of the media and desired to live a normal life. John Bradley saw the flag raising as a burden and felt he was being seen as a false hero while the true heroes were those who gave their lives during the battle of Iwo Jima. He also stated during the interview that anyone on the island could have raised the flag and that he was just there at the right time.