Chapter 4: Call of Duty Summary and Analysis

Mike Strank was the only flag raiser who enlisted prior to Pearl Harbor. Two years after first enlisting, Strank who had been training officers at Parris Island, was a sergeant and heading for combat. At about the same time, Ira Hayes was in Marine boot camp near San Diego. He was accepted into Marine parachute school and got his paratrooper wings in 1942. Everyone was proud of "Chief Falling Cloud" as his peers often called him.

Harlon Block and his football teammates all decided to join the Marines in 1942. Belle was the most distressed. Killing and weaponry was against her religion. But peer pressure at school was stronger than his mother's protests. Seventeen-year-old Harlon needed the signature of one parent. His mother refused but his father had little hesitation—something that his wife had a...