"Just Another Drunk Indian..."----MEMORIAL DAY--Thread # 2

I was taking the bus to visit some friends. We had pulled over downtown to pick up some passengers...and it seemed that we were at that one stop for a while. I had noticed that the driver had lowered the ramp to let on a person...wheelchair or other I didn't know.

I heard someone from the back speak softly...."I see why were taking forever.....just another drunk Indian."

I looked up to see ....and in the doorway (moving ever so s-l-o-w-l-y...and I mean s-l-o-w-l-y) was a American Indian (or Native American for all you P.C. bunch). He was moving his legs about 3 inches at a time....and he was using his crutches to balance himself. He kept trying to speak to the bus driver....but you couldn't really understand him...his words were so slurred.

Finally he managed to get to the front seat (vacated by someone else in an effort to speed things up I guess) and plopped down. Just then...the bottom of his pants came up and you could see the two metal rods that passed for his legs.......and I could see the scarring on his face that made it (or I would guess it would) difficult for him to move his mouth.

Somewhere in the next few blocks...I started a conversation with him. ( I talk to everyone....I find people interesting). We started off the with the usual mundane stuff....the weather...(it was snowing)...how the buses are always late. Then I noticed the tatoo on his hand.

I asked if he had been in the Marine Corps. He looked at me with that '1,000 yard stare'.....the kind that old Veterans sometimes get.....and slowly nodded yes.

So...for the next couple of hours...we rode the bus talking...(it turns out that he rode the bus sometimes just to get out the weather)...learning.

He was from the Navajo Reservation....and came up to "The Big City" once in a while to visit the V.A.Hospital...and have his 'stumps' (how he put it) checked out since the fit with his metal legs never quite worked out.

He told me of how long ago ...as a young man on the 'Res.'.....he joined the Marines. Going thru Basic....learning how to be a Radio Operator....then going to Vietnam.

Of spending the first few months there...basically bored. Just doing the routine patrols....and the tedious life while at base. Then....of being on one patrol.

The patrol was Company size.....and the enemy was at least twice as many. The chaos when the first explosions happened.....the C.O. yelling on the radio (the one that he was carrying) for fire-support. The sound of small arms.....the yelling and screaming.....and for some reason...he remembers how bright the sky was.

He awoke with a Navy Corpman over his face....calmly asking him questions. Questions that never seemed to make sense...as if the Corpman was speaking some language other than english.

He told me that he was trying to concentrate on the Corpman (maybe he was asking something important)...and he wanted to tell the person screaming to shut up.

Then......just before he passed out from the pain and the morphine.......he realized the person screaming.....was him.

He awoke aboard a Navy Hospital ship...with tubes going into and out of his body. The room that he was in was so clean....and had other men in it. He looked around the room...and saw men with casts on...and with I.V.'s feeding them.

It took awhile for his brain to connect.....and to make the reality check and actually realize that he had no legs.

They cleaned him up.....trying to fix the wounds to his face...but he would always have scars. Scars that would limit his ability to speak.

They fitted him with a wheelchair at first....and then around 6 years later...metal legs. They gave him physical therapy...to try and teach him to use his new legs.

If you are ever in "The Big City" and you see along the side of the road (usually down-town) a 5'4" Navajo painfully making his way down the sidewalk with his metal legs and two crutches.....pull over and raise your hand in a salute.

Without even reading the article, I can hear Johnny Cash thundering:

Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinkin' Indian
Or 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

Iwo Jima Flag Raiser

There are six Flag Raisers on the photo. Four in the front line and two in back.
The front four are (left to right) Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley and Harlon Block.

The back two are Michael Strank (behind Sousley) and Rene Gagnon (behind Bradley). Strank, Block and Sousley would die shortly afterwards. Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon became national heroes within weeks.

Ira Hayes — January 12, 1923 - January 24, 1955

Ira Hamilton Hayes is a full blood Pima Indian and was born in Sacaton, Arizona, on the Pima Reservation on Jan 12, 1923. His parents Joe E. and Nancy W. Hayes were both farming people. When he enlisted in the Marine Corps, he had hardly ever been off the Reservation. His Chief told him to be an "Honorable Warrior" and bring honor upon his family. Ira was a dedicated Marine. Quiet and steady, he was admired by his fellow Marines who fought alongside him in three Pacific battles.

Ira Hayes was a noted World War ll hero. Although he had a normal childhood on his reservation, his life changed dramatically when war broke out and he joined the Marine Corps. After he completed courses under the U.S. Marine Corps Parachutist School at San Diego, California. He was lovingly dubbed "Chief Falling Cloud." Ira Hayes was assigned to a parachute battalion of the fleet Marine Force.

By the beginning of 1945, he was part of the American invasion force that attacked the Japanese stronghold of Iwo Jima. On Feb. 23, 1945 to signal the end of Japanese control, Hayes and five other's raised the U. S. flag atop Mount Suribuchi on the island of Iwo Jima. Three of the six men were killed while raising the flag. This heroic act was photographed by Joe Rosenthal, and it transformed Ira Hayes' life for ever. Subsequently a commemorative postage stamp was created as well as bronze statue in Washington DC.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the brave survivors of the flag raising back to the United States to aid a war bond drive. At the White House, President Truman told Ira, "You are an American hero." But Ira didn't feel pride. As he later lamented, "How could I feel like a hero when only five men in my platoon of 45 survived, when only 27 men in my company of 250 managed to escape death or injury?" Later, they were shuttled from one city to another for publicity purposes with questionable sincerity on the part of the American military. Ira Hayes asked to be sent back to the front lines, stating that "sometimes I wish that guy had never made that picture".

The Bond Tour was an ordeal for Ira. He couldn't understand or accept the adulation . . . "It was supposed to be soft duty, but I couldn't take it. Everywhere we went people shoved drinks in our hands and said 'You're a Hero!' We knew we hadn't done that much but you couldn't tell them that."

At the conclusion of World War II Ira went back to the reservation attempting to lead an anonymous life. But it didn't turn out that way . . . "I kept getting hundreds of letters. And people would drive through the reservation, walk up to me and ask, 'Are you the Indian who raised the flag on Iwo Jima"

Ira tried to drown his "Conflict of Honor" with alcohol. Arrested as drunk and disorderly, his pain was clear . . . "I was sick. I guess I was about to crack up thinking about all my good buddies. They were better men than me and they're not coming back. Much less back to the White House, like me."

He was never able to get his life back in balance again. Ira Hayes died of exposure at the age of thirty-three on Jan, 24th 1955. He was memoralized by the Pima people and characterized as "a hero to everyone but himself". He is buried in Arlington Cemetery. He never married.

He now lies in Section 34 of Arlington National Cemetery.

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