Dave Severance, as many boys born between the world wars did, grew up reading pulp magazines telling fantastical tales about World War I. Severance especially loved the ones about the flying aces.

Severance grew up in Greeley, and his roots extend to the nearby town now known for Rocky Mountain Oysters, as it was named after his grandfather, David.

But once he graduated from the high school here, he set his sights on the sky, not the plains.

He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1938, hoping to become an ace himself.

“I thought they would send me over and make a pilot out of me,” said Severance, now 96, from his home in La Jolla, Calif. “They didn’t do that.”

Instead, Severance was shipped out as a platoon leader of parachutists in the South Pacific. World War II was hot, and war being war, the Marines needed him on the ground, not in the air. That’s how he found himself facing Iwo Jima, a pile of rock that stank of sulfur and was hot in the day and cold and rainy at night.

“It was a miserable place,” Severance said in a phone interview.

Severance thinks about the place today probably more than any other day of the year, as it is the 70th anniversary of the landing.

The island is known for the famous photo. You’ve seen it. Even today, when most people know the truth about it, the photo, which seems to show a victory, stirs the kind of feeling you get by reaching a summit, or hitting a bulls-eye, or running the steps of Philly and raising your arms.

Severance, however, remembers the photo differently. He remembers that morning being an especially tense time, in a battle that, four days in, was already looking like a much tougher fight than the Marines anticipated. They spent a lot of time hunkered down in foxholes, firing at an invisible enemy in the hopes of inching their flame throwers close enough to burn them out. Making it two football fields was a great day.

The Japanese had a nest of underground tunnels, so when the flamethrowers did hit their targets, many of the leftovers scurried back to reinforce other lines, or later returned to the original bunker. Clearing the island was an exhausting and deadly task.

More than a fourth of Severance’s men, fighting on the front lines, had died in less than a week – he’d had one killed up to that point, in an ambush in a jungle on Bougainville Island in late 1943 – but he was ordered to send a platoon up to see if his men could get to the top of Mount Suribachi. The orders were to take a small flag, too, and if they did make it, to hoist it high. Severance and his men waited, clutching their guns, ready to strike if his men were attacked.

They were not attacked on the way, and when they reached the top, they raised the flag. The Marines, who didn’t know the extent of the underground tunnels, even thought the battle may be over. The troops cheered and the ships offshore blew their horns. It was a nice moment.

It was not the moment, however, that would stir a nation.

The Secretary of the Navy came ashore and said he’d like to have the flag. The battalion commander, however, wanted the flag for himself and his men. They found a bigger flag, and Severance’s men, two hours later, raised it on Suribachi’s summit. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took that shot, and the rest is history. The photo won a Pulitzer, inspired the nation to buy much-needed bonds and inspired the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va.

The battle, however, continued. It would be the hardest Severance would face in the war. He didn’t get off until more than a month after the landing, and he lost 75 percent of his men. It’s still a difficult memory, even with all the talks he’s given.

“Every day was a push,” Severance said, “and the more men you lost, the harder the push was.”

Today Severance is still at home with his wife, Barbara, and he’s in pretty good shape for his age: He just passed his driver’s test.

There are some good memories, too. They had four grown children. In 1996, he carried the Olympic Torch from the Arlington National Cemetery to the Marine Corps War Memorial. He’s been back to Colorado several times. He remembers a high school reunion in Greeley in 1986.

Some of those best memories, however, came soon after the war, when he got into flying school. He flew in Korea. His dream came true.

“It was fun,” Severance said, “if you want to put it that way.”

Severance prefers to remember those times in the sky. But he’s also proud of his connection to one of the most famous moments in WWII, when six men under his watch planted a flag that flew them all into history.

– Dan England is The Tribune’s Features Editor. His column usually runs on Tuesday. If you have an idea for a column, call (970) 392-4418 or e-mail dengland@greeleytribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @ DanEngland.