When I was in Washington, D. C., I went to see the United States Marine Corp Memorial to see the statue of the six Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Even though it made me proud to be an American, I felt awkward because I am one of the few people that know the truth about the Memorial. The present statue is a modified version of the original. It initially didn’t have a flag and the men weren’t wearing Marine uniforms… but warm-up suits. It was designed by the 1944 U.S. Olympic Committee to get the public’s reaction to a new track and field event they were considering, called “group pole vaulting”.
Needless to say, the idea was eventually abandoned.