Posted on 07/27/2018 3:28:03 PM PDT by eastforker
Ira Hamilton Hayes (January 12, 1923 – January 24, 1955) was a Pima Native American and a United States Marine who was one of the six flag raisers immortalized in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. Hayes was an enrolled member of the Gila River Pima Indian Reservation located in the Pinal and Maricopa counties in Arizona. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve on August 26, 1942, and after recruit training, volunteered to become a Paramarine. He fought in the Bougainville and Iwo Jima campaigns in the Pacific Theatre of Operations. On February 23, 1945, he helped to raise an American flag over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, an event photographed by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press. Hayes and the other five flag-raisers became national heroes as a result. In 1946, he was instrumental in revealing the true identity of one of the other pictured Marines, who was killed in action on Iwo Jima. However, Hayes was never comfortable with his fame, and after his service in the Marine Corps, he descended into alcoholism. He died of exposure to cold and alcohol poisoning after a night of drinking on January 23–24, 1955
(Excerpt) Read more at marines.togetherweserved.com ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmNKspKUaTQ
Johny Cash, Ira Hayes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmNKspKUaTQ
Ira Hayes
[Chorus:]
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won’t answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin’ Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war
Gather round me people there’s a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land
Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira’s peoples’ crops
‘Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin’ water stopped
Now Ira’s folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man’s greed
[Chorus:]
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won’t answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin’ Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war
There they battled up Iwo Jima’s hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again
And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes
[Chorus:]
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won’t answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin’ Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war
Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand
But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira’d done
And when did the Indians dance
[Chorus:]
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won’t answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin’ Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war
Then Ira started drinkin’ hard;
Jail was often his home
They’d let him raise the flag and lower it
Like you’d throw a dog a bone!
He died drunk one mornin’
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes
[Chorus:]
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won’t answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin’ Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war
Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
But his land is just as dry
And his ghost is lyin’ thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died
Songwriters: PETER LAFARGE
He was one hell of a fighting man.
I remember the morning that he was found. Phoenix was just a small city then, and the news spread quickly. Guys from all over who had fought with him responded. It was a sad day in Arizona.
I saw a movie about him...don’t recall the title but Tony Curtis played Hayes.
My dad was drinking buddies with Ira Hayes. He told us many stories of their drinking and card playing. When Ira died my dad said: “That poor bastard passed out in a ditch along the road and froze.”
Met the same fate.
He had been a Medic in North Africa and Italy.
He developed a drinking problem because of the war, his life became a sad story.
My Grandfather died drunk early one morning in 1991, alone in the land he fought to save.
Right, mugshot
Same song Ira Hayes but Johnny Cash performs before the Pima tribe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZyLCzwuTE0
Ira Hayes hitchhiked and walked 1300 miles to inform Harlon Block’s family that it was Block, not Henry Hansen, who was one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima.
There was more to Ira than being a drunk. A sad story, post war, to say the least.
When this movie was about to come out, there was a TV special shown with Lee Marvin playing Ira Hayes.
In the movie, Hayes (Curtis) dies due to exposure on a frost covered mountain. In the TV show, Hayes (Marvin) die falling drunk into an almost empty irrigation ditch.
“The Outsider” 1961
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055270/
Full movie is on Youtube for free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH_5gPaHCuk
Toward the end of the 1949 movie “Sands of Iwo Jima”, Ira Hayes, Rene Gagnon and John Bradley make anonymous cameo appearance in a group scene with John Wayne.
Earlier in the film, John Wayne and Forrest Tucker attempt to settle a personal beef. In the midst of their fight,they are interrupted by an unnamed officer. That officer is then Col. David Shoup.
Still photos of these portrayals are available on various search engines.
Where is he buried?
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