Maybe you didn't know Joe Rosenthal.

Maybe you did.

I never met the man.

However, I suspect that you are aware of the famous photograph of World War II servicemen raising an American flag over Iwo Jima -- which later became the model for the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial.

Rosenthal took that picture. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor bestowed in journalism, and Rosenthal, who was always behind the camera, stood in front of it more than a few times in honor of his historical photograph.

I bring up Joe Rosenthal this afternoon because at 94, he died this past week. I have always been fascinated with Rosenthal's story ever since I read a historical piece about him and the picture a year of so ago in a national publication.

Rosenthal took the picture of the soldiers on Feb. 23, 1945, while working for The Associated Press, the wire service we subscribe to here at The Marshall Democrat-News. To me, Rosenthal's picture is a perfect example of capturing the moment through the lens of a camera.

"The story of the picture has lasted over the decades since it was made and is a rich and compelling tale," said retired AP photo editor Hal Buell, who has written a book about Rosenthal and the picture titled, "Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue," according to an article in APWorld.

I agree with APWorld writer Carolyn Nardiello when she recently wrote, "The picture came to symbolize valor and the nation's determination."

Many people thought Rosenthal posed the servicemen to get the famous shot, but actually that's not true. Rosenthal climbed to the top of Mount Suribachi to take the picture. The Marines had raised one flag on the summit where more than 6,800 U.S. servicemen died in a five-week battle for the island, an AP account said. The 21,000-man Japanese defense force was wiped out, it said.

The Marines decided the flag that they had raised so they decided to raise another. "Out of the corner of my eye," Rosenthal told AP 10 years after the picture was snapped, "I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know," he told AP.

As to posing the picture, Rosenthal always had a good answer. He said if it was posed "I would, of course, have ruined it" by choosing fewer men and making sure that their faces could be seen.

As the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, draws nearer, Rosenthal's famous photograph played a large part there, too.

Thomas E. Franklin, photographer for The Record of Bergen County, N.J., took a picture of three firefighters raising a flag at what was left of the New York City World Trade Center. That photo was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Rosenthal, like the servicemen he photographed on Iwo Jima, was just a regular Joe doing his job. In his obituary written by Associated Press writer Justin M. Norton, Rosenthal was asked about all the hoopla that surrounded his picture.

He said he was flattered by the attention, then added, "I rather just lie down and listen to a ball game."

Who is listening?

You're at a party and you want to dish out the latest rumor. You feel that, in the middle of a crowd, you're going to be protected from others finding out later that you spilled the beans.

Under most circumstances you're safe -- except of course for dishing out rumors. Now, two researchers at the University of Missouri -- Columbia have figured out a mathematical solution to the problem of separating one sound from a group of other recorded sounds.

Peter Casazza and Dan Edidin, both professors of mathematics in MU's College of Arts and Science have put together a mathematical model to separate the voices that works and now begin work on a more consistent algorithm that will quickly accomplish the task each time.

So maybe, someday, your secret won't be safe from those who can listen.

Mason is the editor of The Marshall Democrat-News. Spectrum appears on Friday.