Pacific War

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Recommended: media influence of public opinion during war a good or bad capability

In Flags of our Fathers, realism shows thought the entire movie. Clint Eastwood, the director of the film depicts three soldiers; John “Doc” Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes who are later believed to be heroes after they raised the American Flag in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Eastwood focused on delivering as much realism to viewers as possible through the different scenes, while some of them may have really occurred; some did not. Unlike many other Hollywood war movies, the characters of Flags of Our Fathers are not fictional . Following the scene where characters come off the boats and into the beaches of the island follows history as it happened. The film also shows how some of the main characters have posttraumatic stress disorder, which is something that has affected soldiers’ trough history. Ira Haynes is known to be suffering from this disorder as he suffers from survivor guilt, depression, social dysfunction, and alcohol abuse to temporarily calm his psychic pain he suffered because of the war. Doc Bradley suffers from lifelong combat as he experiences symptoms of insomnia, and survivor guilt as he did in real life. All through the movie, the characters have flashbacks of the battle as they are being cheered for being the ones in the picture of the flag rising which had been used as a propaganda picture in order to get Americans to support the war6. Another little known fact that the movie reveals is the military initially made a mistake in identifying one of the Marines in the photograph, which the press learned about after the war had ended. While Doc’s son wrote a book about his journey during World War Two, he refuses to tell some details of the battle and often dreams of the night with Iggy in the foxhole as a sign of...

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...s aided the popular view of this era of American History because there are almost no inaccuracies in the way Clint Eastwood directed the film. All the information offered by the film is as accurate as it could be. From the battles to the daily lives of the soldiers; Flags of our Fathers shows exactly the effects that wars have on human beings. The film successfully demystifies the story behind the photograph of the American Flag raised on Iwo Jima. It helps Americans know the story behind a world famous paragraph that circulated during World War Two. The main reason for this is because the film is based on a non-fiction book and screenwriters did what ever they could to follow the book exactly as it got written. We can assume Eastwood did his research and since the movie takes few liberties with the book, the film is one of the most accurate war movies ever made.

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