All Hail the Honored Dead

REDDING, California (AP) — Raymond Jacobs, believed to be the last surviving member of the group of Marines photographed during the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, has died at age 82.

I tell my students that there are three very important groups of people passing away right now:
World War Two Veterans, The original civil rights workers, and the Astronauts, engineers and managers of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. These people did amazing things for our country indeed the world, and their passing is always sad. Unfortunately we don't hear about many of them till they pass. While in the Marine Corps I was fortunate enough to meet Joe Rosenthal the gentleman who took that photograph he, unfortunately, passed away in 2006.