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Iwo Jima flag-raiser posthumously gets citizenship document

One of the Marines shown in a famous World War II photograph raising the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima was posthumously awarded a certificate of U.S. citizenship on Tuesday.

Sgt. Michael Strank, who was born in Czechoslovakia and came to the United States when he was 3, derived U.S. citizenship when his father was naturalized in 1935. However, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently discovered that Strank never was given citizenship papers.

At a ceremony Tuesday at the Marine Corps Memorial -- which depicts the flag-raising -- in Arlington, Virginia, a certificate of citizenship was presented to Strank's younger sister, Mary Pero.

Strank and five other men became national icons when an Associated Press photographer captured the image of them planting an American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945.
Read entire article at CNN