Tom Huntington

At the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, a bronze memorial stretching 78 feet from its base to the tip of the flagpole recreates the stunning moment caught by the late photographer Joe Rosenthal. Rene Gagnon was one of the three surviving members of the flag raising who modeled for the sculpture. New Hampshire […]

Rene Gagnon was just 18, a high school dropout who worked in the textile mills of his native Manchester, New Hampshire, when he became a Marine in May 1943. Less than two years later, it was Rene, a month shy of 20, who carried the American flag — the second one to fly that day […]