None of them would go.

[**The following is in regards to the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theatre of World War II.**] >A Company, which had landed first and made the heroic charge across the western beach, was among the most devastated. “Doc sent me over there,” Cliff Langley recalled. “Their corpsmen were gone and they needed help. They’d started the day with two hundred fifty boys and they were down to thirty-seven. They had paid the price for that seven-hundred-yard dash across the island.” On arriving, Langley encountered eight “walking wounded” among the casualties. “They were suffering,” he said, “and I gave them tags to identify them as casualties so they could be evacuated. They could have left and received Purple Hearts, and held their heads high.” But like the lieutenant shot through the jaw in the morning, none of them would go. “They stood there wounded and bleeding,” Langley remembered. “But they refused to leave their buddies.” ______________________ **Source:** Bradley, James, and Ron Powers. “D-Day.” *Flags of Our Fathers*. Bantam Dell, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2006. 166. Print. ______________________ **Further Reading:** [Battle of Iwo Jima / Operation Detachment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima) ___________________________ **If you enjoy this type of content, please consider donating to my [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/HistoryLockeBox)!**