The Veteran Who Never Stopped Fighting

The Fight For Peace Continues.

The Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the most horrific battles of WWII, raging on for over a month, claiming the lives of nearly 7,000 American soldiers and leaving another 19,000 wounded. Captain Jerry Yellin was one of the brave men who saw combat flying P-51s for the army air corps in the skies over Iwo Jima and now we find the 91-year-old veteran commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima. He flew 19 combat missions over Japan including the final combat mission of WWII on August 14th 1945. Yellin takes pride in being one of the 16 million people who served in the war against evil but travels to Iwo Jima as a way of healing rather than promoting war.

“War is an atrocity, that evil has to be wiped out. We are not what we believe, we are all are all human beings exactly the same. There is evil in the world today and we have to fight that evil to make sure that there is freedom for free loving people in our world.”

Yellin reluctantly made his return to Japan in 1983 but soon fell in love with country and the culture of his former enemy. In 1988 his youngest son married the daughter of a Japanese kamikaze pilot and has 3 Japanese grandchildren. He has found unity with the Japanese and transformed his hatred into love pushing away the past and working toward a better future.