Published: July 29, 2008 11:17 pm         

Local WWII vet’s sister accepts posthumous citizenship papers

ARLINGTON, Va. — A seven-decade oversight involving a local man who helped raise the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima has been corrected.

Immigration authorities on Tuesday presented a posthumous certificate of citizenship to Marine Sgt. Michael Strank of Franklin Borough.

Strank was born in Czechoslovakia and came to the U.S. in 1922 at age 3. He was naturalized in 1935, when his father became a citizen, but immigration authorities never presented Strank his papers.

Strank’s involvement in the flag-raising would have been lost to the ages if not for the lens of photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Instead, Strank’s actions were immortalized in the famous flag-raising photo and eventually the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The Tribune-Democrat reprinted the story of Cpl. Ira Hayes after his death in 1955. Hayes was one of the Marines who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi along with Strank.

According to Hayes, “When we got to the western side, one of the men noticed men on top of the volcano. Then all of a sudden we saw a flag go up. It was pretty small, and I could hardly make it out.

“Then our company commander sent for Sgt. Mike Strank, my squad leader. ... We got halfway up and took a break. Mike had a bulge in his jacket, and one of the fellows asked him what it was.

“He grinned back and showed us a flag and told us we were going to plant a large flag in place of the little one so the whole island could know the 28th had secured Suribachi.

“The idea was to keep a flag up all the time, so a couple of men lowered the small flag, and then we raised the large one. Then we tied it down.

“Then a Marine hollered over to us and said our picture was taken. About 20 yards away, we saw Joe Rosenthal and a couple of others. We didn’t know they were taking our picture.”

Strank died just days later during combat on Iwo Jima. He was 25.

A bridge connecting Franklin and East Conemaugh boroughs is named the Sergeant Michael Strank Memorial Bridge in his honor.

At Tuesday’s ceremony at the memorial in Arlington, Jonathan Scharfen, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, presented the certificate to Strank’s younger sister, Mary Pero of Somerset County.

Pero said the family was surprised to learn her brother never received the papers.

Scharfen said the ceremony was important to recognize Strank’s service – and that of all immigrants who have served in the military.

“Sgt. Strank is part of a larger and more important history,” said Scharfen, a former Marine.

He said rules have changed recently to make it easier for men and women in the military to become citizens.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, more than 40,000 men and women serving in the U.S. military have become citizens.

The oversight in Strank’s case was discovered by Matt Blais, a Marine gunnery sergeant who began researching Strank’s life while stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia.

     

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