... but my rumination was triggered by ER's subject line.

What I'm getting at, I guess, is how public collective memory fades. Fifty years ago, when we were kids and the memories were still fresh, the mention of the name of the mountain was sufficient to invoke the battle and the famous image. Soon, that association will pass to a relatively small number of specialists: historians, whether of WWII, or of photography, or Marine families like Scott's in which the history of the Corps is an oral tradition.

The iconic photograph, and the bronze memorial modeled from it, will endure. So will the idea that it symbolizes a particular form of heroism. What will be lost, except to those few specialists, is the place and the reason.