Clint Eastwood is not an historian, put he plays one in Hollywood.

Here is what I learned from the film: 1. War is brutal and ugly; 2. Soldiers don't fight for their country -- they fight for their buddies; 3. The United States troops stormed a sulfur-smelling island for no apparent reason during World War II; 4. The enemy of the United States were unmanned guns firing from hidden bunkers; 5. Asian soldiers who dared to show their faces at night--probably in defense of the sulfur-smelling island--were brutally killed by U.S. soldiers; 6. White folks who drove Ira Hayes to drink were ultimately responsible for his death; 7. Mostly, only greedy white men wanted war.

What Eastwood omitted: 1 The defeat of the Axis powers of World War II liberated millions of people all over the world who had been enslaved by Fascist tyrants; 2. Soldiers have fought for their countries AND their buddies; 3. A few years prior to the battle for Iwo Jima there was a horrific crime--Pearl Harbor--committed by Japanese forces; 4A. The U.S. soldiers on Iwo Jima were fighting Japanese soldiers who had been ordered by their commanders to defend every inch of land to the death -- even though, by this stage of the war, the Japanese military leaders knew their defeat was inevitable; 4B. Japanese soldiers brutally tortured and murdered American prisoners of war (Ref. Bataan Death March); 4C. The revolution (crimes) of the junior Japanese officers within their military, prior to World War II, went unchecked by senior Japanese officers and other government officials. The pride of the junior officers led to the deaths of thousands of soldiers, American and Japanese, and several thousand Japanese civilians; 5. While the movie showed U.S. soldiers being killed (or showed their corpses as a result of suicide), it never showed the images of Japanese soldiers actually killing or torturing Americans; 6. The life and death of Ira Hayes entailed more than racist comments and the bond drive depicted in the film. Haye's love for the Marines and his suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome were not fully conveyed by Eastwood; 7. Largely as a result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, the majority of Americans favored FDR's declaration of war.

Aside from the cinematography, and largely because of the above omissions, this film was disappointing. In retrospect, I discovered I could have turned the sound off and still ascertained the plot and tone; thus, the movie's dialog was nonessential.

The film as a whole reminded me of the old Soviet Union propaganda sculptures: Massive gray images of history as it should be interpreted -- not as it was.

Eastwood did get the "war-is-ugly" part right. But when filmmakers of his ilk leave out the facts of war, Posterity misses key opportunities to avoid it.