VALLEY LEGENDS: Nation still remembers Block and flag raising

WESLACO — Photographer Joe Rosenthal captured one of the most iconic images of U.S. military history after bloody fighting between U.S. Marines and the Japanese for control over the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima in 1945.

As five Marines and one Navy corpsman hoisted the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi for the second time, Rosenthal snapped his famous picture, forever etching the name of Weslaco native and U.S. Marine Cpl. Harlon Block in the annals of U.S. history.

But the historic moment would have never happened if not for a handful of rebellious teenagers, said Harlingen resident Glen Cleckler, a friend of Block who served in the Marine Corps alongside him.

Cleckler recalled one fateful day in the winter of 1943 when he, Block and another friend skipped classes at Weslaco High School to catch a movie in Harlingen. After the film, the trio visited a Marine Corps recruiting station nearby.

Spotting the perfect alibi for missing class, Cleckler, 84, said the three teens stopped into the station to pick up information should their absence be questioned by school administrators.

But Cleckler said the pamphlets became more than a convenient excuse after the recruiter on duty enticed the trio to enlist.

Block's decision, Cleckler said, was not popular with his Seventh-day Adventist parents whose religion called for the strict following of the Bible's 10 commandments, including "Thou shalt not kill."

"His mother was disappointed," Cleckler said.

According to the book Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley, which chronicles the lives of the men who raised the flag in Rosenthal's photograph, Belle Block pleaded with her son to go into the medical field instead of the military, but Harlon Block insisted and enlisted on Feb. 18, 1943.

Cleckler still wears the Marine Corps ring Harlon Block gave him while both were stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Although neither knew where the next battlefield lay, Cleckler said, his longtime friend felt like he would meet his end there.

"He said, ‘I don't know where we're going. Give (my mother) this ring and tell her she was right,'" Cleckler said of the conversation he had with Harlon Block. "(After returning from the war) I told her to take it, but she said no and told me to keep it."

Harlon Block was one of some 30,000 Marines to land on the beaches of Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, and after fierce fighting was one of the six men captured in Rosenthal's photograph on Feb. 23, 1945.

But identifying Harlon Block as one of the men in the image was difficult after he was killed by a mortar blast on March 1. Harlon Block, seen in the photo as the figure on the far right bracing the base of the flag, was originally misidentified as Marine Sgt. Henry Hansen.

An endless stream of protests by fellow flag-raiser and Marine Cpl. Ira Hayes eventually led to a congressional investigation that ultimately identified Harlon Block as one of the six men in the photograph.

Today, a memorial statue depicting the scene in Rosenthal's photo stands in Arlington, Va., and another is closer to home on the grounds of the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen.

Harlon Block's gravesite is also on the academy grounds after his body was moved twice - once from its original burial location in Iwo Jima and then again from its second resting place at the Weslaco City Cemetery upon his family's request.

On Feb. 23, 2002, Weslaco named its state-of-the-art sports complex on the city's south side Harlon Block Park/Sports Complex in memory of arguably its most famous resident, said former Weslaco Mayor and local historian Joe V. Sanchez.

"(Harlon Block) graduated from high school here, and (the photo) is arguably the best picture in the world," Sanchez said. "I think it was proper for the city to do that and honor him for the sacrifices he made."

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Mike Gonzalez is a reporter for the Mid-Valley Town Crier.