I went to a funeral for a friend’s father last week. Ed Suib, a longtime White Plains resident, was 88. I have known his son, Dan, for 32 years.

I vaguely knew Mr. Suib had been in the Navy during World War II, but not until his funeral did I, and many others in the synagogue that morning, learn that he had served in the first American wave atIwo Jima. We learned of it only through an eloquent eulogist who had also served on Iwo Jima, some weeks after the initial invasion.

Ed Suib, just shy of his 21st birthday, was pinned down under Japanese fire for three days and nights in February 1945 on the island’s black sand beach. “No human being should ever again be asked to do what we were asked to do on that beach,” the eulogist recalled him once privately saying, vet to vet.

The rest of this column is available at Newsday. Thanks for reading.