Text of marker reads:
"Marker Text: A Marine, he was the oldest and highest ranking of the six men who took part in the famous raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, Feb. 23, 1945. This scene, photographed by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press, was later used in the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington. Born Nov. 10, 1919, in Czechoslovakia, Strank grew up in Franklin Borough. Killed in action March 1, 1945, he was reinterred 1949 in Arlington Cemetery."
"One of the first objectives after landing on the beachhead was the taking of Mount Suribachi. At the second raising of a flag on the peak, Joe Rosenthal photographed five Marines: Ira Hayes, Mike Strank, Rene Gagnon, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, and U.S. Navy corpsman John Bradley raising the U.S. flag on the fourth day of the battle (February 23). The photograph was extremely popular, being reprinted in thousands of publications. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography that same year, and ultimately came to be regarded as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war, and possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time."
The picture was the inspiration behind the USMC Memorial Statue in Washington, D.C.
A few days later on March 1st, Sgt. Michael Strank was fatally wounded and buried on Iwo Jima. On January 13, 1949, his remains were reinterred in Grave 7179, Section 12, Arlington National Cemetery.
Strank was born in Czechoslovakia but raised in Conemaugh, PA.
"In 2008, Gunnery Sergeant Matt Blais, who was a Marine security guard in the American Embassy in Slovakia, discovered that Strank was not a natural-born U. S. citizen. He had become a U.S. citizen after his father's naturalization in 1935, but had never received official documentation. GySgt Blais petitioned the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services on Strank's behalf and on July 29, 2008 Strank's youngest sister, Mary Pero, was presented with his certificate of citizenship in a ceremony at the Marine Corps War Memorial"
Source: Wikipedia
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