The battle had raged for four days, and would continue for 31 more, a marathon of sand and heat and unrelenting death. But at that moment there was an order from the brass: Get a bigger flag up there. The small American flag fluttering atop Mount Suribachi, the volcanic peak on the island, was too small to be seen by the troops fighting below.
From his makeshift command post near a captured Japanese airstrip, a 24-year-old marine combat photographer named Norman Hatch began to scramble.
The next few hours, and the days immediately following, would thrust Hatch into the story of one of the most famous photographs in history, taken 68 years ago on the speck of rock in the Pacific Ocean called Iwojima. The resident of Alexandria, Virginia, the last man living directly involved in its creation, helped ensure the image's place in perpetuity.