Here come the U.S. Marines. And they’re not happy.

Time magazine, on its April 21 cover in most parts of the world, takes the famous Iwo Jima photograph of Marines raising the American flag, and replaces the flag with a tree to discuss battling climate change.

Some veteran Marines are up in arms.

Donald Mates, an Iwo Jima veteran, told the Business & Media Institute on Thursday that using that photograph to make a point about global warming is wrong.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Mates is quoted on the BMI Web site as saying. “Whoever did it is going to hell. That’s a mortal sin. God forbid he runs into a Marine that was an Iwo Jima survivor.”

Mates also said making the comparison of World War II to global warming was baseless and disrespectful.

“The second world war we knew was there,” Mates told the BMI reporter. “Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.”

Mates served in the 3rd Marine Division and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima, landing on Feb. 24, 1945, according to the report.

The mission of BMI, according to its site, is to audit the media’s coverage of the free enterprise system.

Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel appeared on MSNBC on Thursdday and said the United States needed to make a major effort to fight climate change, and that the cover’s purpose was to liken global warming to World War II.

Lt. John Keith Wells, the leader of the platoon that raised the flags on Mount Suribachi and co-author of “Give Me Fifty Marines Not Afraid to Die: Iwo Jima” wasn’t impressed.

“That global warming is the biggest joke I’ve ever known,” Wells told the Business & Media Institute. “[W]e’ll stick a dadgum tree up somebody’s rear if they want that and think that’s going to cure something.”

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