U.S. Marines stormed the black sands of Iwo Jima 70 years ago today.

Four days later, on Feb. 23, 1945, and while still under enemy fire, Associated Press photojournalist Joe Rosenthal took one of the most iconic war photos of all time, capturing five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising a U.S. flag on the summit of Mt. Suribachi, an extinct volcano and Iwo Jima’s high point.

Joe Rosenthal, AP.

Three of the Marines in the photo, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, and Michael Strank, died days later in the ongoing battle for the remote Pacific island.

Rosenthal’s photograph became an instant symbol of the war, turning the surviving three troops into celebrities, and is the only photo to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography the same year as its publication.

The military capitalized on the photo’s “viral” appeal, using the image, and the three surviving troops featured in it, to promote a 1945 War Bond drive, which raised $26.3 billion.

Rosenthal’s photograph ultimately evolved into a long-lasting, defining symbol of the war, and may be the most widely reproduced photograph in history.

Sculptor Felix de Weldon used the image as the inspiration for his statue at the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, dedicated in 1954 to honor fallen Marines.

The Marine Corps War Memorial.

The 2006 film, “Flags of our fathers,” directed by Clint Eastwood, depicted the flag raising and the fate of the six troops involved.

Rosenthal, a Washington D.C. native and the son of Russian immigrants, was deemed unfit for military duty during World War II due to his eyesight—he only had one-twentieth normal vision. He joined the AP in 1941 as a photographer and went with the U.S. fleet in the Pacific. He accompanied the 70,000 Marines who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima during the first waves of the invasion on Feb. 19, 1945.

Highlighting the difficulties of objectively covering a war in which one’s own countrymen are fighting, Rosenthal later pushed back against claims that the famous Iwo Jima image was staged.

Joe Rosenthal

Other troops who witnessed the flag raising insisted the moment was authentic, and a color motion-picture film by Marine Sgt. William Genaust, a combat cameraman, shows the flag going up in a continuous sequence of events.

“To get that flag up there, America’s fighting men had to die on that island and on other islands and off the shores and in the air,” Rosenthal wrote in 1955. “What difference does it make who took the picture? I took it, but the Marines took Iwo Jima.”

Rosenthal died Aug. 20, 2006. He was 94.

Six Bosnian nationals were arrested and charged in the U.S. last week for allegedly sending money and weapons to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on Friday. All six were charged with provision of material support to terror groups, and conspiracy to provide material support and resources.

Terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS have increased their recruitment efforts online and through social media, attempting to lure disenfranchised Western citizens into jihad. U.S. refugee resettlement programs, which offer asylum to thousands of refugees from countries where terrorist groups operate, are consequently coming under increased scrutiny.

In 2014, for example, the U.S. admitted 10,057 refugees from Somalia—where the al-Qaida-affiliated militant group al-Shabaab has a strong presence.

More than a dozen Somali-Americans traveled to the Middle East to join the ranks of ISIS in 2014, according to Minnesota Public Radio and CBN.

National security journalists, therefore, should analyze the vetting of potential refugees, and if the current protocols have left open loopholes for militants to gain entry to the U.S. homeland.

But a refugee policy that is too restrictive is also problematic.

After more than a decade of combat operations in countries throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, the U.S. has a responsibility to protect the lives of foreign nationals who aided U.S. war efforts as translators, fixers and in other critical roles.

An unnamed Afghan interpreter, working with U.S. soldiers in Logar Province, Afghanistan, 2013. (Nolan Peterson)

The media has an important role to play as watchdogs to ensure that as U.S. operations wind down in Afghanistan, and as Iraq deals with the aftershocks of the U.S.-led war there and its new battle with ISIS, adequate protection and humanitarian concerns are paid to individuals who risked their lives, and those of their families, to assist U.S. military and diplomatic efforts.

The Refugee Processing Center offers a comprehensive data portal through which journalists can access and analyze U.S. refugee data, according to metrics such as year, country of origin, and relocation destinations.

This data is easily accessible through the Internet by visiting the RPC website.

Data can be sorted according to user preferences and synthesized into downloadable reports.

RPC data is a valuable and easily accessed tool to analyze emerging threats, as well as hold the U.S. government accountable to foreign nationals who have played a critical role in defending U.S. lives and interests in the post-9/11 wars.

Long before he became prime minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Winston Churchill was a conflict journalist.

His experiences as a front-line reporter in conflicts across four continents, which he often melded with his early military service, undoubtedly helped shape Churchill’s suspicion of what he perceived as Europe’s naïve efforts to appease Hitler in the run-up to World War II. His persistent exposure to war also inspired his sober impression of human nature and famous fighting spirit, which defined his wartime leadership.

In 1895, Churchill travelled to Cuba to write about the Cuban War of Independence for the Daily Graphic. He came under fire on his 21st birthday, the first of about 50 times during his life.

In 1897 he deployed to India’s northwest frontier as a military officer and wrote stories for the The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph on the Siege of Malakand, which was a battle between British and Imperial Indian forces against Pashtun tribes in what is now modern Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border. He also worked as a war correspondent for the Morning Post in Sudan in 1898, participating in what is considered the last British cavalry charge at the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898.

In 1899, Churchill headed to South Africa as a newspaper correspondent, again for the Morning Post, to cover the Boer War between British and Dutch settlers. He was caught in an ambush of an armored train and captured by Boer soldiers. After escaping a prison in Pretoria, the 25-year-old Churchill embarked on a dangerous journey through enemy lines back to Durban, where he was received as a hero.

Churchill wrote more than a dozen books in his life, many of which comprised multiple volumes. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.

“History will be kind to me,” Churchill said, “for I intend to write it.”

Churchill in the Boer War, 1899.