WASHINGTON — After a spate of recent concerns over the misidentification of six men photographed raising a flag over Iwo Jima, the Marine Corps has now revealed that the men were not actually raising a flag at all, but instead lifting a support beam into place for an ocean-view bar.
"It turns out not only did we get some of the names wrong, but the Marines were actually just building their own tavern, since there was not one on the island at the time," Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Ronald Green said. “‘Tun Tavern East’ was its name.”
Given the intense heat and humidity of the Japanese Archipelago and the storied history of the Corps as a military drinking organization with a war-fighting problem, it is no surprise that one of the first objectives upon landing was to set up a watering hole.
