Harlon Block

These are the soldiers raising the flag.

[gentle music] Crouching at the base is Corporal Harlon Block.

Block was born in Yorktown, Texas, the son of a dairy farmer, the third of six kids.

He was a star football player, and he and seven of his high school friends decided to join the Marine Corps before they graduated high school, so the school held a special graduation ceremony for them in January of 1943.

He enlisted in the Marines early in the war, before the US even entered it, and fought throughout the Pacific before landing on Iwo Jima.

Strank was described as, quote, "A Marine's Marine." Quote, "The kind of Marine you make movies about," who often told his men, "Follow me.

I'll try to bring you all safely home to your mothers." He was killed by friendly artillery fire from an offshore American ship on March 1st, the same day as Harlon Block, a week after the photo was taken.

He was 25.