HEROES: The High Ground

The scene in the White House rose garden seemed more like a christening than an epilogue to bloody Two Jima (casualties: dead, 5,563; wounded, 17,343). Colonel Justice Marion ("Jumping Joe") Chambers, 42, retired Marine hero of the Iwo invasion, had brought along his family of five to watch the President loop the shiny, star-shaped Medal of Honor around Chambers' neck. Harry Truman had hardly begun the commendation when one of the seven-month-old Chambers twins grabbed at the script, rattled it vigorously until restrained by a firm presidential hand. Then the other twin reached up for the President's pocket handkerchief....

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