Mr. Baize spoke to Scientech Club about his experiences in Iwo Jima on 23 February 2009 and then promptly joined the Club. In the 9 May 2009 issue of North Indy Star, Jim was honored by taking part in the Park Tudor School's "Words of War: Wartime Memories Series." At age 81, he is the youngest veteran interviewed by students in their oral history project, which is now in its sixth year. The fourth installment of the series was just published; Baize's photo is on the cover. Jim told this reporter that, "Of the 71,000 or more men who fought at Iwo Jima, only 400 are alive today."

At age 13, he quit school after his grandfather died (his grandmother had died two years earlier). He had been raised by his grandparents in Indianapolis. He did not have any father figure or direction so he decided to leave school. He labored for two years and then he tried to enlist in the Navy with a friend. Baize lied about his age (15) and had an Army veteran pose as his father so he could join the Navy at age 17.

Indystar.com reporter Gretchen Becker writes that Baize said of the teacher Kathryn Lerch's students, "They had a lot of good questions. They seem to be real devoted to their work." Baize wanted to be stationed on an aircraft carrier. Instead he drove Marines ashore on a boat to Iwo Jima, an island of which he (and most Americans) had not heard of before. When his landing boat was sunk at the beach, he remained on the island to fight with the Marines.

Reporter Becker further quotes the veteran, "Baize saw the first flag raising at Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945. The second was made famous by Joe Rosenthal's photo." Jim Baize was injured many times. The worst one filled his neck with shrapnel, knocked out some teeth and fractured three vertebrae. He was transferred to a hospital in Oregon where he spent the next seven months.

This high school dropout went on to earn his GED in the service and used the G.I. Bill to attend Northwestern, earning a Mechanical Engineering degree. He went on to matriculate at Purdue University where he studied Nuclear Engineering. Later he founded Baize Corporation, an engineering architectural design firm.

Like many veterans, he did not discuss his military service years for a long period of time. But after he attended a reunion of his shipmates, he began to talk, first for the Library of Congress archives and then for the Park Tudor history project, where he displayed his 23 medals.

The article concludes, "It took me time through therapy to have some closure," Baize said. "There are a lot of people interested in WW II history. If you don't know your history, it's hard to be patriotic."