Joe Rosenthal, the man who took the picture, died today. He was in his nineties. I'm sure you've seen it, the iconic photograph of US Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima. It is a masterpiece of composition and subject, action frozen in time that captures the moment perfectly, a moment of triumph and tragedy.

The battle was decades ago, most of those who survived the fighting have since died, but we still remember this one battle because of that photograph. Like all Americans, that image has haunted me all my life. I've known about it since a child, how it wasn't the actual flag raising, but the second, how three of the GIs in the picture were to die in the fighting that raged after, how thousands more were to die before the island was finally secured from its fanatical defenders. No matter. It is how we choose to commemorate that moment and honor those men, a work of art in service to the human spirit not because but in spite of the agony of war.

I remember the first time I saw the massive statue in Washington DC based on that photograph, how my cab driver angrily thought I was staring at him, not past him to that glorious bronze. I had to explain it to him, he saw it every day and it was invisible to him. When I pointed out what I was doing, his manner softened, and we both became quiet, as if to honor the men under that flag. I remember the old "Canned Heat" album cover with the band dressed in space suits repeating that classic pose on a simulated lunar surface, Old Glory upside down. No, I was not offended, nor did I snicker in cynical recognition, either. I think the band, in it's own way and perhaps for a different reason, also chose that image for its great power and its shared history for all of us.

Joe Rosenthal went ashore with the Marines and no doubt took hundreds of pictures, perhaps he had a long journalistic career after, I don't know. His life had purpose, to provide us with that frozen instant in time, as the men who died so young on that island also provided their instant of youth and pain so we could also recognize their purpose. Any photographer will tell you the really great shots are always accidents, but so is every life. I despise the glorification of war, it is the childish strutting of the worst among us, and the worst in us. It is about as glorious as a self-amputation, something which may have to be done, but never lightly, and never irreverently. But when it happens, we should never forget the sacrifice, of both sides. After all, the Japanese were defending their homeland, and they died almost to the last man.

Raise your cup tonight and down one for Joe Rosenthal, and for his comrades, back then and today. May they rest in peace, and may their sacrifice not be in vain.