Still no signs of the enemy”. Even though the journey to the top of Mount Suribachi was not the most difficult due to the Japanese having already retreated, they felt that they had to do something to mark this victory. They decided that the best option was to raise an American flag on the top of Mount Suribachi. During this process, “Leader and Rozek found a section of drainage pipe . . . Schrier, Thomas, Hansen, and Lindberg shook out the flag and ran a line through a hole in the pipe to fasten the banner in place . . . Lindberg kicked his heel into the loose dirt, gouging out a hole”. However, after this, “[Lindberg’s] buddies held the makeshift flagstaff horizontally, waiting for a signal”. At this moment, the marines were waiting to make sure that the photographer and everyone else was ready for this big accomplishment to happen.
This was truly an amazing victory by the United States Marines, so they wanted to make sure that it was documented in some way, in this case, by a photographer. An interesting part of this is that the picture was taken while the flag was being hoisted up, and not when the flag was already raised. This was done on purpose to reflect the idea that the Marines fought hard to get to this point, and that this was their last moments before official victory when the flag was raised on Mount Suribachi. As many can imagine, this was a very substantial moment of the war that deserved to be recognized and