The story of an unsung American/Jewish hero Lynn Sanford remembers: By HARRIET KESSLER Voice staff The loving memories are always present. But they intensify beginning with the approach of Memorial Day and continuing through August 15- when Lynn Sanford says yizkor. This year, the long time staff member in the Jewish Federation Department of Jewish Education Teacher Resource Center, wants to share those memories of her late husband. She would like the South Jersey Jewish community to know just a little about "an humble man who never bragged about what he did," but was an unsung American Jewish hero. She would like her community to recognize Harry Sanford, one of the first U.S. Marines to land on Iwo Jima who helped win America's bloody battle for the tiny Pacific island against Japanese forces in March of 1945, and lost his valiant personal battle against prostate cancer on August 15, 1998. She would also like to publicly remember the 1,500 Jewish marines present at Iwo Jima, and Rabbi Roland B. Gittleson, the first Jewish chaplain the Marine Corps ever appointed, who fought with them and watched over them. The late Harry Sanford, one of the first U.S. Marines to land on Iwo Jima. • • • Lynn met her late husband in 1949 at a dance in the Bronx, three years after his discharge from the Marines. They married shortly afterwards and, like many couples of their era, left New York City for the suburbs- in their case Levittown, now Willingboro, NJ. But his New York and Iwo Jima experiences, which he spoke of throughout their marriage, stayed with him. Neither was easy, according to Lynn, but together they gave him his strength as both a man and a Jew. Harry's battles began well before Iwo Jima, his widow recalls. Born on Nov. 6, 1926, he lost his mother early "and was farmed out by his father"- handed over to a peddler who deprived and abused him. Always resourceful, he lived on his own "pretty much from the age of five," eking out a living from that age on, first by carrying wet wash, then by pushing clothing on racks throughout Manhattan's garment district, loading moving vans and doing odd jobs at the water front. All this, while going to school, according to Lynn, "where he was mentored by his teachers." He often spoke of the many teachers who'd taken an interest in him, often inviting him to dinner. • • • At 18, on Feb. 16, 1944, soon after high school graduation, Harry Sanford joined the Marines. A year later- almost to the day, he landed on Iwo Jima, where one of the bloodiest battles of World War II raged for five weeks. The lives of the 70,000 American Marines who fought that battle that raged from Feb. 19-March 24, 1945 were well beyond difficult. Harry recalled a stretch of fighting "24 hours a day for four days with no food and no sleep," said Lynn. "Also, he was wounded in the knee, the chest and some place else … he didn't like to talk about it and he wouldn't take the Purple Heart." They raised the flag on Iwo Jima four days after he sustained his injuries. "That was inspiring," said Lynn. "Harry recalled that they were very down and it gave them the push to continue." When the fighting was over, there were separate memorial services for Catholic, Jewish and Protestant fallen marines. Rabbi Gittelsohn, who conducted the Jewish service, wrote an eloquent eulogy for that service that has become an American classic. Corporal Sanford was so moved by the eulogy that he carried a copy of it in his wallet for the rest of his life, Lynn recalls. But there was a back story that he never knew until the couple moved to New Jersey and joined the young Willingboro synagogue Adath Emanu-El led by Rabbi Richard Levine. • • • "It just so happens that Rabbi Gittelsohn was Rabbi Levine's first father-in-law," said Lynn Sanford, marveling at the coincidence. Upon hearing that Harry had been in Iwo Jima, he told the young couple "the rest of the story." Very simply, Division Chaplain Warren Cuthriell had asked Rabbi Gittelsohn to deliver the memorial sermon at a combined religious service dedicating the Marine Cemetery. Cuthriell wanted all the Iwo Jima fallen marines to be honored in a single, nondenominational ceremony. He was, sad to say, ahead of his times. Racial and religious prejudice was strong in the Marine Corps, as it was throughout the United States, in 1945, and despite Cuthriell's protestations three separate religious services were held. To their credit, three chaplains were so incensed by the prejudice that they boycotted their own services. One of them circulated several thousand copies of Gittlesohn's eulogy to his regiment. Substantial media coverage, with Time Magazine publishing excerpts and the entire sermon inserted into the Congressional Record. • • • Following his discharge from the army on June 9, 1946, Harry Sanford went to college under the GI bill and then forged a career supervising the physical plants at schools and hospitals. "He always cared about people, especially the kids around him who needed guidance," Lynn Sanford recalls. The father of a son and daughter, he became a substitute teacher at Bordentown Regional High School upon his retirement, teaching the kids "life, not a subject." When students ran into him on the street or in the local shops, they would greet him fondly and ask if he had any new jokes. "There were so many cards and notes from students during his illness," says Lynn. "So very, very many." .