Friday, November 8, 2013

A Family Goes To War: From Iwo Jima To Afghanistan

Stephen Barton in Afghanistan / Courtesy of the Johnson family

Iwo Jima To Afghanistan, A Family Goes To War -- CBS News

Stephen Barton never knew his grandfather, Walter Johnson, but both men enlisted in the military when they were 18 -- Barton in the U.S. Army, Johnson in the U.S. Marines.

Barton served first in Iraq and then Afghanistan, Johnson on Iwo Jima during World War II. He was on the island when the Associated Press's Joe Rosenthal took his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising an American flag.

Johnson died four years before Barton was born, but the younger man grew up idolizing him from the stories he heard from his mother, Marlys Johnson. When he finished high school, he wanted an adventure.

"I just wanted to go and experience something uncommon," said Barton, who now lives in Chico, Ca.

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