Grace Baptist Academy students started with a book on World War II, then went digital and on Thursday got to hear about the real thing.
Students in Jessica Box's 10th-grade English class were assigned the book "Flags of Our Fathers" as summer reading before the start of this school year.
The class then created Facebook pages for each of the six men in the iconic photo of the Iwo Jima flag-raising on Mount Suribachi during World War II.
On Thursday, local Iwo Jima veterans Bill Allen and Paul George visited the academy to share their war stories with more than 300 students. The men fought in the battle but are not in the photo.
George, a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, served aboard transport ships that hauled Marines and ferried supplies to the island throughout the battle, which took place in February and March of 1945.
"I was in the Coast Guard; they just did not tell me which coast I was going to be guarding," George joked, eliciting laughter from the crowd.
George and Allen both stressed how important their faith had been to them during the war.
"I am standing here today by the grace of God," Allen said as he started retelling his war experience.
Allen, a U.S. Marine sergeant during the battle, talked about the training and other island assaults that led up to the famous monthlong fight. His duty in the assaults leading up to Iwo Jima was to reconnoiter the beach as the first one out of the craft, helping his fellow Marines find their stations in the battle.
But two days before the Iwo Jima landing, Allen's lieutenant told him that because he spoke Japanese, he would stay with the lieutenant and hit the island on a later wave of the assault.
"The guy who replaced me ... he didn't take 10 steps," Allen said, choking back tears. "So if he hadn't replaced me, I'd have been a goner."
Aaron Tisdale, an academy sophomore, said hearing the veterans' stories was "kind of unreal," especially after reading about the fighting in World War II.
Kelle Schorle, also a sophomore in Box's class, said simply reading the stories helped her understand the reality of veterans' experiences and helped her appreciate their sacrifice.