You Don’t Know Jack: Meeting an Iwo Jima Vet!
If you have read some of my earlier posts, I advocated for going the extra mile and saying something more than “thank you for your service.” I have met some heroes of our past wars, I’ve heard some great stories and the silence of a few that wish to leave the memories behind.
This weekend I was led to the National Museum of the Marine Corps located in Quantico, Virginia. The museum sits just outside the gate of Quantico Marine Corps Base and is easily accessible to the public. Walking through the galleries which tell the story of the Corps from its founding at Tun Tavern to its latest battles against the global terrorist threat, I knew I would surely find a new hero with whom I could talk. Some of the exhibits brought back memories of events, a few that I had experienced and others that I had read about or studied over the years. Waiting to enter the Iwo Jima exhibit’s “pre-invasion briefing” aboard a Navy landing ship I met my newest hero! Frank “Jack” Matthews, a 92-year-old Marine veteran of the landing on Iwo Jima and the subject of the book You Don’t Know Jack.
Frank Jackson Matthews knows the Battle of Iwo Jima well — he fought in it — a skinny kid from South Carolina who was the only member of his forty-man platoon to leave the island alive. From the website You Don’t Know Jack
As I introduced myself to Jack, he said “I am tired, I have been standing all day talking to folks. I need to sit down.” Joining him on the bench, he told me about the book, You Don’t Know Jack, and how awful it was during the landing. I told him about how I had sailed in the vicinity of Iwo Jima but, of course, never had been to the island. He told me he never wanted to go back, “no, I never want to see it again.” In his eyes I saw a man who had seen too much, way too much for the young Marine manning a flame thrower, the only weapon that forced the Imperial Japanese soldiers from the caves of the island. Too much for the kind man that could be anyone’s granddad.
Sitting next to him, with his Iwo Jima Vet ball cap with its shiny Eagle, Globe and Anchor, I knew I was sitting next to a hero! I wanted to talk more but “Jack” was tired. There were hundreds more in the museum that wanted to shake his hand and say a few words, so we took a picture and entered the briefing room to hear learn more about the Iwo Jima and the hell that the Marines and Sailors landing on the beach endured.
I hope the next time I visit the museum that I get a chance to talk more with Frank. He volunteers at the museum and maybe I will get more of his story, but in the meantime I plan to order his book (Quite surprised the museum store didn't stock it!) and read more about my new shipmate!
