Ira Hayes (12 January 1923 – 24 January 1955) was a Native American US Marine Corps Corporal during World War II who was famously one of the six flag raisers at the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Biography[]
Ira Hayes saying his goodbyes to John Bradley and Rene Gagnon during the opening of the Marine Corps memorial.
Ira Hayes was born in Sacaton, Arizona in 1923, and he came from the Pima tribe. The Pima were successful farmers before the US government cut off their water supply, preventing them from eating.
Hayes joined the US Marine Corps to leave the reservation, eat regularly, and send money home to his family, and he helped to raise an American flag over Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Hayes and the five other photographerd flag-raisers became national heroes, but, following the war, he became an alcoholic after returning home to persecution; he also knew that he was not one of the original flag-raisers, as most of the original ones had been killed.
In 1946, he travelled 1,500 miles through hitchhiking and arrived in Weslaco, Texas, where he told the original flag holder's family the truth about their son's death, gave them his medal, and walked home. He died of alcohol poisoning after a night of drinking on 24 January 1955.
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