“The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years.”
-James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, Feb. 23, 1945
Eighty years ago, three divisions of United States Marines and their Navy Corpsmen, joined by the Army’s 147th Regiment, stormed the sulfurous black sands of a then little-known island called Iwo Jima. The five-week battle that followed was bloody, and nearly 7,000 Americans would never see home again. Another 20,000 were wounded. To commemorate the extreme sacrifices made by American service members on Iwo Jima, Auto-Ordnance and the artists at Altered Arsenal teamed up for this commemorative 80th-anniversary Iwo Jima M1 Carbine.