Intercom Insight

Vin Diesel Catches the Vision for XXX

When Vin Diesel read the rough first draft of the script for the hit movie XXX, he wasn't impressed. So the director got him on board by casting the vision. He said, ''Xander Cage is a nihilist. Xander Cage is the least likely to save the world. Xander Cage doesn't care about the world. Xander Cage is recruited by the CIA to save the world, and in the process he learns patriotism and the value of life.''

Coming not long after the 9/11 terrorist attack, you can imagine the impact of this theme. Vin Diesel caught the vision and dedicated himself 100% to the project, preparing himself with an ''extreme-sports version of weightlifting for three months,'' including motocross, snowboarding, speed climbing and some Navy Seals training in San Diego.

Vin Diesel got fired-up about the script when he saw the change in the character toward patriotism and the value of life. Yet, many of us are like the early Xander Cage, who had not yet learned these qualities. Having grown up in a free country, it's hard to fully appreciate what we've got. Although our country's not perfect, at least we've got freedom and a voice in how we're governed.

This week, let's reflect on what life might be like if we had no freedom. Imagine we were ruled by a dictator who could drag any of us to prison for merely disagreeing with his policies. Like Xander Cage, we all could do with a little more patriotism.

Discussion Questions

1) What helped Vin Diesel catch a vision for the movie "XXX"?
2) Why do you think many people don't have a lot of patriotism?
3) Can patriotism be taken to an extreme? How?
4) How can we become more patriotic?

Illustration/Activity

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The Price They Paid
(Corrected from the Original Internet Version on Snopes)http://www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

Freedom comes with a price - a price that most of us don't fully appreciate. For example, when we look at our Declaration of Independence, we see all those signatures at the bottom. "Big deal. So they signed a piece of paper," you may say. Yet signing that document was no small thing. It drew a line in the sand, letting both friend and foe know where they stood.  We'll never know all the hardships that these brave patriots eventually suffered. But what we do know helps us to understand the price of our freedoms. 

• Five were captured and endured deplorable prisons.
• Many  had their homes occupied, ransacked and looted.
• Two of Abraham Clark's sons were captured and held on the prison ship Jersey.
• John Witherspoon's eldest son died in The Battle of Germantown.
• Carter Braxton, a man of great wealth, lost much of his wealth when the British either confiscated or sunk the ships in which he was heavily invested.  
• Francis Lewis' home was raided shortly after he signed the Declaration. His wife was imprisoned.
• John Hart's farm was looted, forcing him to go into hiding.

Hmmm...

These are but a few examples of what people risked and lost to gain our freedoms. What efforts could we make to keep from losing our freedoms? (Let students discuss.)

• Study up on issues so that we can make our voices heard.
• Vote intelligently in elections.
• Get involved in government to make it more efficient at maintaining our freedoms. 

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The Marine Corp's Worst Battle

(To make this presentation more interesting, get six volunteers from among your class to each read a portion about one of the men in the memorial. Also, find a picture of flag raising on Iwo Jima either in a textbook to show them or on the Internet to run off on an overhead transparency or in PowerPoint. Then, you can point to the picture to get students involved visually.)

How many of you have seen this photo? It's a picture of four marines raising the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima, considered the best picture of World War II. The photographer won a Pulitzer Prize for it. The United States Marine Corp War Memorial, across the Potomac River from Washington D.C., is based on the picture. It's also on the Acworth Post Office wall. 

Iwo Jima is pretty small. It's just an eight square mile volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean. Does anyone remember why we sent 110,000 Marines to fight the Japanese there, knowing that we'd face heavy casualties? (Show this on a map.) The Japanese had aggressively attacked China and would soon overtake Burma, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, the Philippines and Thailand.  When they attacked us on our own soil at Pearl Harbor,  sinking 18 our ships and 170 of our planes. Japan quickly declared war on the USA and we declared war on them. 

Iwo Jima was strategic because the Japanese had airstrips there, from which they had attacked U.S. Bombers. If we could take the island, we could use it as a base from which to attack Japan. So, it looked like your typical bomb them senseless, followed by shipping in the Marines to overwhelm whoever's left. 

Problem was, the brilliant Japanese military commander had his 21,000 troops dug 1500 rooms safely under 30 feet of volcanic rock, connected by 16 miles of tunnels. As a result, all the bombing raids produced a lot of sound, but did virtually no damage. It was up to the Marines to land on the shore and attack this well-fortified island. They knew that the casualties would be great going into it. With that background, you see the significance of this battle and the raising of the American flag. Historical wars are sometimes so impersonal. Let's get into a few of their lives. Who were those Marines who raised that flag? 

James Bradley, author of "Flags of Our Fathers," was in Washington, D.C. to speak at the Iwo Jima memorial the following day. A group of middle school students were visiting Washington, D.C. and stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial, the largest bronze statue in the world and representative of one of the most famous photographs in history; that of six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo lima, Japan, during World War II. James Bradley was there that evening to say good night to his dad, who had since passed away. He spoke these words to that group of teachers and students.

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. Six boys raised the flag."

(Student #1) "The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called World War II But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old."

(Student #2) (He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph. ..a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of lwo Jima. Boys, not old men."

(Student #3) "The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers."'

(Student #4) "The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off lwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of32 ...ten years after this picture was taken."

(Student #5) "The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky - a fun-Iovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night. ' Yes, he was a fun-Iovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at
the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away."

(Student #6) "The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived unti11994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press."

You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain. When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'

So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo lima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time. "

The teachers and students alike realized this "wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top." It is a vivid reminder that we enjoy freedom, but at a great cost and sacrifice. From the Revolutionary War to the War in Iraq, we must remember that freedom has and continues to come with a price.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why do you think it's sometimes difficult for those who've never served in the armed forces to fully appreciate the freedom we have? 
2. Why are other reasons people fail to appreciate our freedoms? 
3. Why should we speak out against the wrongs in our own country and work toward righting them? 
4. How did Martin Luther King right some of our wrongs and make our country a better place to live?
5. Some people seem to see only our country's imperfections. How can we not overlook these imperfections without losing our patriotism?
6. How can we grow in our appreciation for our country?
7. Why is it important to obey our country's laws, even when we might think some of them are stupid? (We might not know the reasons behind some of the laws.)

(Story found in lesson plan from Lockheed/Martin, Marietta Diversity Counsel, for Kennesaw Mountain High School in Kennesaw, Georgia. If anyone knows the original source, please let me know.)

Need more resources on "Patriotism"?
See also our related trait: "Democracy".