The men in it could be the faces of that campaign.

There was one problem.

Identifying the men took days, and the identifications had to be made under combat conditions on an island where the fighting was still intense.

Three of the six men in the photograph — Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, and Private First Class Franklin Sousley — were killed in action on Iwo Jima within two weeks of the flag raising.

They would never leave the island alive.