Psalm 44:1 declares: “We have heard with our ears, O God, Our fathers have told us, The deeds You did in their days, In days of old.”  

From his earliest days, Scott Brown remembers his dad Bill—a P-51 Mustang pilot during the Battle for Iwo Jima—fulfilling the words of this Psalm. The elder Brown not only gave Scott a WWII K-Bar when he was a young boy, but he regaled his son with stories of God’s faithfulness during this epic conflict in the Pacific. And the senior Brown, known to his grandchildren as “Gan,” did the same with David, Scott’s son, when he was growing up.

In this Memorial Day podcast, Scott and David share their memories of joining Mr. Brown on a special trip to Iwo Jima for the sixtieth anniversary of the battle. The two learned many lessons from the late patriarch of their family, sixteen of which are highlighted in the book Preparing Boys for Battle—lessons on such character qualities as purity, friendship, discipline, work, and taking on mighty challenges for the Lord. And these lessons—all gleaned from the grueling 36-day battle for Iwo—are as needed now for the boys of this generation as they were for the soldiers of WWII.

For great stories for Memorial Day, get an audible or hard copy of our book, Preparing Boys for Battle, and Moment of Courage, which contains dozens of lessons on manhood derived from the Battle for Iwo Jima.

TODAY ONLY, we are offering these books for 40% off.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, But today is a little bit different. We're here to talk about Memorial Day. We're here to talk about and give thanks for those who died protecting our country. And so today I've got my son David with me to talk about some things that have been really big in our lives over the years.

Yeah, yeah, the story of Iwo Jima and again, my grandfather and the war was a big part of our lives. Yeah, it was so big. We ended up writing a book about it. My son David and I spent a lot of time trying to document what happened on Iwo Jima regarding my father. These are, the stories that are in this book, Preparing Boys for Battle, are real stories of real people.

But they're also framed in, really what the Bible says about manhood. So we tried to tell the story of what biblical manhood looks like and so wow what an adventure that was. Yeah, no, that book, it opened the door to something, I don't know if we expected it, but tons of stories. We got connected to some of Gan's old friends that he knew during the war. We got connected to men that were on Iwo Jima and telling their stories.

It was a fun experience. Yeah, it really was. And it all kind of started, we started doing Memorial Day celebrations on our farm. And we would have military jeeps and people telling their stories. We would invite Christian men to come and really preach the gospel and tell their stories.

It was just so much fun. At one point, we were having a couple thousand people come to this event with, you know, rides and military jeeps and big vehicles. You know, I remember, remember the military sent a helicopter one time to come in and land. Remember how it hovered over the lake? It was awesome.

Wow. It was the highlight. We really had a lot of fun doing it. But what was most remarkable is we ended up going to Iwo Jima in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the battle. Yeah, no, the trip to Iwo Jima was something I'll never forget.

You know, in those stories in the book, as you mentioned, we took those stories from Iwo Jima and boiled them down to lessons that you were teaching, that Gan taught us through the stories. And I'll name a couple of them that we have. Chapter five is the tears of flamethrowers. They were terrifying. But we weaved the gospel message into that chapter.

Chapter seven is massive deployment. To put together the war against Japan and taking that island of Iwo Jima was a massive deployment. We weaved the message of taking on mighty challenges. The Bible has a lot to say about taking on mighty challenges. The story of Gan getting shot down.

And that's chapter 12, shot down in enemy waters. The Lord goes before you. Gan has some awesome statements on trusting the Lord, what his father told him. Chapter 14 is called Buddies. Gan had some amazing relationships throughout the war.

And we talked about being a good friend during that. So Gan would pass on great wisdom to us in his stories. He would tell us the stories. It would be amazing. You would learn something every time.

But then he would have a principle to give you. Every time he talked to you, It was an important principle to pass on to you. I think we found a couple video clips of him telling some of those stories. I wanna share one. This one's on where he talks about doing work.

Another basic principle I wanna pass on is as you prepare to do your best work do it with all your gusto. Be prepared and mentally know that you're prepared to give an instructions and you follow out those instructions day after day after day willingly and knowing that God goes before you. Yeah, David, he told so many stories that were really, really practical. And that's why In the book, we've got stories that talk about purity, that talk about friendship, that talk about discipline, that talk about work, but all an outgrowth of real stories. Hey, you know what, they were actually the things I wanted to teach my own children, including you, about what it meant to be a man.

It was just such a joy to put that book together, especially because it was tied to real stories. This book is full of scripture. And it's 16 things every son needs to hear his father say. That's what preparing voice for battle is all about. Yeah, yeah.

And in 2005 you took Kelly and I to Iwo Jima with Gan in an incredible trip. It was incredible to stand where those men stood and be on those beaches, ride in those military vehicles around the island. Why did you wanna take us back to Iwo Jima? You know, my dad had told me all these stories since I was a kid. And the idea of being able to go back there and actually follow in his footsteps to walk the places that he walked, to see the places that he experienced explosions and all kinds of stuff.

I'm very thankful for my father. But I wanted us to honor my dad. And so we went back there and I couldn't believe it. We went and stood on the top of Mount Suribachi. So what did it mean to you to stand on Mount Suribachi?

I remember somebody asking me that question when we were in Guam. It was right after that. And it was just, well, here we go. Let's listen to the clip. Standing on the top of Mount Suribachi, I was able to see every single geographical location my father told me about all my life.

He would point to one, he would point to another, he would point to another, he would point to his foxhole, he would point to his airfield, he would point to the place where there was a massive raid and some of his buddies were killed. He would point to his tent where one day he was the only one alive in his tent, everybody had been killed. And so I was able to see with my own eyes all the things that he told me about. It was joy to me. I was so happy on that island.

So David, as you remember, Dad arrived on Iwo Jima on D plus eight, the eighth day after D-Day. He wasn't really there to fight Japanese, he was there to fly airplanes. So they came to Iwo Jima by boat and then planes were flown in and then they started flying P-51 Mustangs over mainland Japan to continue the war. So he arrives in a boat, gets out on those black sand beaches of Iwo Jima, which weren't those amazing? Amazing, yeah.

We brought a lot of sand back, didn't we? We did, yes. We just couldn't resist. That was so remarkable. And so anyway, he gets off and he faces this beach that has been the place of so much bloodshed.

Anyway, so he talks about it, let's listen. When I got off the ship, I realized I couldn't carry two bags. One bag was it. And so I left the food bag on the cargo ship and crawled down rope ladder and got into the landing craft. Landing craft was just a little boat.

You run it up to the shore, the front flops down, and you get out. And that was the common way they brought most everything into the beach because they didn't have any docks built yet. So I walked, they had told us about the sandy beach and it is true it was a slow slog going up ridge after ridge to the area where they wanted us to dig our foxholes. And so this was a group of about ten of us. We went up, got our shovels out, dug a little bit, and didn't get very deep.

But the hummocks on this part of Iwo were uneven ground. And so we dug in and we looked over behind us towards Suribachi and there were these cannons, these 105 howitzers. And so before we went to sleep, they started shooting those howitzers over us to the north end of the island. And from that time on, barrages were going on constantly. As much as they could get the ammo they would fire those things and it was strange having those shells whistling above you.

Nobody stood up very tall during that period. And the Marine Cemetery finally was just maybe 50 feet from where we dug our foxholes. And that was a awesome thing to see thousands of body bags lined up like sacks of coal about that high. So I grew up hearing all these stories about foxholes and explosions and howitzers, night raids from the Japanese on our soldiers tents. My dad, he brought back a knife and gave it to me when I was probably three or four or five years old.

It was a K-Bar knife. You know, you can buy these knives now. I've got one. He bought a K-Bar knife and I remember my mom was not very happy with me because I dug a hole. I dug my own foxhole right under the foundation of our house in Fullerton, California, and had to get covered up.

But anyway, so those stories were just really remarkable. Stories of flame throwers and all this kind of stuff. Well anyway, as we started really studying the battle for Iwo Jima, when I got older, we started bumping into men that were on Iwo Jima and some of them live right here, you know, in the Raleigh area. You know, one of them was a Marine, an infantryman who was there on D-Day and he crossed that island, you know, in just the horrific battle scene on D-Day and ensuing, Bill Henderson. And he became one of our dear friends.

He spoke at Memorial Day many, many times. Buck Bunn, he was a B-29 pilot. He was flying B-29 missions off at Iwo Jima. My dad, of course, was flying P-51 missions. The P-51s were protecting the B-29s and also bombing and strafing on the mainland.

So we got to know these guys. But there was another guy, Arthur Bury, who was my dad's best friend. And he was such a funny man. And they're just crazy, hilarious stories that dad would tell us about Bury. So here's what happened when I first met Arthur Burry.

Let's play the clip. I saw the consistency of my dad's character come out when I saw him relate with his best buddy on Iwo Jima. I just met this man in Fredericksburg, Texas at the 60th commemoration of the battle for Iwo Jima. So my dad had told me about this guy all my life, Arthur Burry. Burry was a household word.

I knew all the stories about Burry and there are some really funny stories. I finally met Burry and I spent three days with Burry and my father. And it was so funny to watch them together because they just had fun. Everything they did. They laughed, they joked.

Whatever they were doing they had fun. Well that's what my dad did his whole life with everybody. With our family, with me. He was like that with Burry, he's like that with everybody. He's just he's a fun guy to be with.

He makes everything every situation a joy. Oh by the way that footage was shot in 2005 in Fredericksburg, Texas so that's that actually is me you know a long time ago. Quite a while ago, yeah. No, those were exciting times to go through that history travel there. One of the other really neat things about Iwo Jima, amazing things, is the amount of courage and valor that was shown on the island.

The Japanese had dug in, had made it almost impossible to take that island. We bombarded it for a really long time beforehand. But when we were on the island, they gave out, I believe it is, 27 Medal of Honors medals during that time, more than any other time and any other engagement in World War II. And we wrote about it. We wrote a book called Moment of Courage.

It just prints the account of each of those medal recipients. And it's incredible to read those. It's a great story, many stories here to tell to your sons. I was inspired many times by going through and reading these. I want to read them to my boys as they grow up.

But yeah, this is another really great resource that I'm glad that we printed. You know, if we went camping or something like that, I'd pull that book out and read it to you kids. Yeah, Moment of Courage, Medal of Honor recipients, stories, really, really inspiring stuff. Here's what I wrote at the beginning of the book. I read these stories to my son David throughout his boyhood.

I read to him by flashlight and tents. I read these stories on rocks and grassy fields. I read to him in airplanes, cars, restaurants, wherever I wanted him to hear the stories of the heroes of Iwo Jima. I wanted him to know the language of heroism that was displayed on that island. Moment of courage, really neat little book.

So David, what a joy it was to spend those years writing this book here, Preparing Boys for Battle, 16 Things Every Son Needs to Hear His Father Say. You remember, we spent days in the National Archives getting original battle photos. This book is full of original battle photos. You've seen some of them scroll on this screen, but there are hundreds of photos. And If you read this book, you will know what happened on the island of Iwo Jima.

You'll have a sense of history, but you'll also have a sense of theology and how to prepare boys for battle. Now, for Memorial Day, we're running a sale, 40% off on this book, 40% off on this book, Moment of Courage. We think you'll really enjoy reading these two books. And wow, David, what a blast from the past. Yeah, it's been awesome.

Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast, our Memorial Day session. Hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day, celebrating the kindness of God in protecting this nation through men who died. We'll see you next time.

Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.