The TV news editor, aware of a local connection attached to tonight’s documentary on Iwo Jima, had no idea whom she was talking to Thursday afternoon.
But when Rene Gagnon, calling from the station’s private phone outside the NH1 News studio, mentioned his name a second time, the editor realized what she had: the source she needed for a weekend story, delivered to the station’s front door like a pepperoni pizza.
This slice of life reveals a lot about Gagnon and his sudden emergence into the national spotlight. The 69-year-old resident, a straight-talking, chain-smoking, blue-collar guy, is the son of Rene Gagnon Sr., one of six men made famous when their photo was taken as they raised the American Flag at Iwo Jima in 1945.
Now Gagnon Jr. wants publicity, deserves publicity and will get publicity, tonight at 9 on the Smithsonian Channel. That will follow TV and newspaper reports already shown and published in New Hampshire.
For 70 years history told us that John Bradley was one of the men in the photo, as did a book written by Bradley’s son James Bradley, and, later, a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.
Tonight’s documentary will say something else. Advanced technology, certainly not available when the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo was snapped, has led investigators to claim that a man named Harold Schultz, not Bradley, was part of that tight cluster shown in the photo, pushing that iron pipe up, making a country feel proud, creating an image for all time.
Gagnon has never liked the manner in which his father was portrayed in Bradley’s book: a janitor instead of a property manager, a problem drinker instead of merely someone who drank, a man who had trouble holding a job, a Marine concerned more with profiting from history than deflecting credit to the men who died in the volcanic ash on that dreadful island.
“Here is my opportunity,” Gagnon said. “It gives me the opportunity to spread a little better news about my father.”
He sat outside his Concord home Saturday morning, under a tree’s shade, sporting gray razor stubble and sandals befitting the start of a lazy holiday weekend. His van, the one with the “Iwo Jima” license plate, was parked in the driveway.
His passion runs deeps, to the point where he described himself as a Phoenix rising, the mythological metaphor used to portray rebirth after great distress.
Gagnon makes no secret he’s bitter over the money Bradley earned from telling his story. The one about John Bradley and his place in Joe Rosenthal’s photo, perhaps the most famous in American history. It represents sacrifice and courage, and it inspired the United States during vicious fighting against the Japanese in the final year of World War II.
The fact that Bradley wasn’t even in the picture while Gagnon Sr. was eats at Gagnon, wears him down, sets him off. Gagnon sees this as his chance to build up one man and, in a sense, tear down another. He tried to squelch this fact during our interview, but, eventually, it crept to the surface.
“I’m not trying to bash him,” Gagnon said, referring to the elder Bradley. “Well, I am. I didn’t want to bash him, but, Goddamn, the man knew (he wasn’t in the photo) and so did the son.”
This is where it gets tricky. James Bradley now readily admits his father, who was on the island that day, was injured and honored with medals, wasn’t one of the men in the picture. But he told me two months ago by phone from his home outside New York City that he did nothing unethical or devious with respect to his book and Eastwood’s movie.
The Marines told his father he was in the photo, history told America he was in the photo and James Bradley wrote it that way.
“The public has a lot of opinions,” Bradley told me. “I can’t get involved with what people think.”
Gagnon, however, gets involved with what he thinks. He’ll scream from the rooftops that John Bradley wasn’t in the picture while Rene Sr. was. He’ll tell anyone who will listen that his father, who died in 1979, gave speeches and made sure to give credit to those killed at Iwo, while Bradley, who died in 1994, rarely spoke about the photo and hid from the media.
And while Bradley’s reclusiveness could indeed be a sign of modesty, of a man shying away from hero worship so those killed on the island could receive more attention, Gagnon doesn’t see it that way.
“There’s modesty and then there’s modesty,” Gagnon said. “Dad would make appearances and say thank you for inviting me and I’m not a hero, he’d say the Marines who died there were the heroes. Bradley didn’t want to talk about anything.”
You’ll see and hear Gagnon tonight, on a documentary produced by the Smithsonian Channel, with the blessing of the Marines. He was interviewed in May for an hour but has no idea how much air time he’ll get.
He promoted it last Thursday on his 69th birthday, giving interviews, some live, some taped, from 9:10 to 10:30 a.m. His voice reached Los Angeles, Chicago, Albuquerque, three cities in Ohio, two more in upstate New York.
He spoke to a Union leader reporter in Manchester’s Victory Park, near a monument dedicated to his father, a native son. Then he stopped by NH1 News, unannounced, thinking the TV media outlet based in his hometown might want to chat.
“I figured that was the only thing I hadn’t gotten,” Gagnon said. “I got the radio, I got the newspaper. I needed the TV.”