Iwo Jima Survivor Uncle

The Geist family had its annual Christmas Party and Summer Party.  The summer parties were held at Uncle Dale and Aunt Sandy’s Farm in Northampton County.  Uncle Earl use to play Santa Claus at the Christmas parties.  When Earl passed,  Uncle Fritz picked up the Santa Claus torch,  and up to 2016,  son Bryan played the role.
 
As a young teen at a summer party approximately in 1982, I remember Uncle Earl sitting on the hill next to Uncle Tom, watching all the action of the party like the male lions laying on the rock keeping watch over the pride as they ate food, played volleyball,  tossed eggs and swam and canoed in the pond.
 
Uncle Earl passed in  March of 1990 and it was not until 2,010 that I learned my Uncle Earl as a Marine had fought in the Iwo Jima battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II.  In fact,  he is in the third picture Pulitzer Prize photographer Joe Rosenthal took of the famous flag raising in Iwo Jima on February 23rd,  1945.   
 
Looking at the picture of the 20 marines standing on top of Mount Sarabachi,   Uncle Earl is the third soldier from the left,  the only one holding a cigarette in his hand. (*see note).
 
Uncle Earl was a funny, happy-go-lucky guy.  As a young kid,  at the Christmas parties,  after a few drinks, the men would share hunting stories, and a few more drinks, the military service or war stories came out.  I remember Uncle Earl breaking down and crying,  he could not talk about it.
 
The invasion of Iwo Jima was a bloody one,  and surviors of the battle say the Clint Eastwood movie battle scenes in Flag of Our Fathers,  is true to what happened.
 
I understand today why Uncle Earl looked like the Pride Lion that summer day on the hill.   When you have walked and through the hell of Iwo Jima,  anything is easy after that.
 
In 1989,  the year before Uncle Earl passed,  he shot the biggest buck of his life, and the caught the largest trout in his life -  as if the Lord of Creation gave him a gift before passing.

Note:  
I am in receipt of a June 23, 2017  letter from the USMC History Divisioin from the Branch Head and Historian telling me my Uncle did not serve in Iwo Jima. Some family will be upset with this, but facts are facts.   He was assigned to Company A, 1st Armored Amphibian Battlaion,  trained in Guadalcanal in February of 1945 and was part of the landing in Okinawa landing in April of 1945.  The person in the picture claimed to be my Uncle is Lieutentant Harold Schrier.  

Uncle Earl appears in the Movie "Gung Ho"  playing a Japanese Soldier -  the movie stars Randolf Scott.