Iwo

The following is a newspaper article that covered the event:

Iwo Jima Re-Enactment Held in Texas

Published: Feb 20, 2005 7:29 AM EST

DOSS, Texas (AP) - As the sound of artillery filled the air, about 200
performers carrying M1 carbines climbed a muddy hill on a central
Texas ranch marking the nation's largest 60th-anniversary re-enactment
of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

The historic scene recreated Saturday on some 30 acres represented
the rugged speck of Japanese land in the Pacific Ocean where about
28,000 died during a grueling month of fighting in early 1945 — a battle
immortalized in an Associated Press photo of a group of U.S. fighting
men raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi.

"I'm seeing a lot of visions," said 81-year-old Hershel Williams, who
earned a Medal of Honor in the battle. He was a 21-year-old corporal at
the time.

Members of the War Dog Training Patrol of Lackland Air Force Base
portrayed Marines in Saturday's flag raising ceremony at the National
Museum of the Pacific War in nearby Fredericksburg. The re-enactment
was put together by staffers at the museum, which has held a series of
60th-anniversary commemorations beginning with that of Pearl Harbor
in 2001.

Almost 7,000 Americans were killed and about twice that many were
wounded in the 36-day assault that began Feb. 19, 1945. The battle on
the eight-square-mile volcanic island was the bloodiest ever for the
Marine Corps. Fewer than 1,000 of the island's Japanese 22,000
defenders survived. The Americans wanted Iwo Jima's airstrips for use
in conducting long-range bombing raids against Tokyo.

Spectators on Saturday got a taste of what both sides in the battle had
to endure. It took re-enactors about an hour to scale the steep hill. The
mock battle involved people portraying Japanese troops defending the
site. Half of the defenders were veteran re-enactors from Japan who
traveled to Texas for the event.

Many of the former Marines at Saturday's event, however, said they
came to see old friends, not to relive the fighting.

"I don't watch war movies," said Williams, of Ona, W.Va. "It gets to me,
and I just can't do that. I don't sleep for a few nights afterwards."

Doss is 100 miles west of Austin.

©2005 The Associated Press