Political Quotes

“Mr. President, there is a photograph that we have all seen: six battle-weary victorious marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima. It is one of the most iconic photos of World War II. It was taken 77 years ago this month. Among those six brave marines was a coal miner's son from western Pennsylvania. His name was Sgt Michael Strank. At 25 years of age, he was the oldest of the six flag raisers. The men in his rifle squad idolized him. One of them said: ``He was the kind of Marine you read about, the kind they make movies about.'' Sergeant Strank used to tell his men: ``Follow me and I'll try to bring you all home safely to your mothers.'' One week after he raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, Michael Strank was killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He was the first of the six flag raisers to die. Today, he is buried among America's heroes in Arlington National Cemetery, but that is not the end of the story. In 2008, a Marine security guard based at the U.S. Embassy in Slovakia discovered that Michael Strank was not a natural-born U.S. citizen; he had received his citizenship through his father when his father became a U.S. citizen in 1935. So where was this marine's marine born? He was the first child born into an ethnic Ukrainian family in what is now Slovakia. Like my own mother, who was born in Lithuania, Michael Strank came to America with his mother as a toddler, as soon as his father could save the money for their passage.…”