Native American Raised Flag On Iwo Jima - America Made Him Icon Then Left Him To Die Drunk At 32

This is the tragic true story of Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian Marine who became part of the most famous photograph in World War II history. On February 23, 1945, Hayes was one of six Marines who raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Photographer Joe Rosenthal captured that moment in an image that would be reproduced millions of times, stamped on postage, carved into the Marine Corps War Memorial, and used to sell $26 billion in war bonds.

Three of the six flag raisers were killed in action on Iwo Jima. The three survivors, including Hayes, were pulled off the front lines and sent on a nationwide bond tour where they were treated as heroes and symbols rather than human beings. For Ira Hayes, a shy, quiet Pima Indian from the Gila River Reservation in Arizona, the constant attention and exploitation violated everything his culture taught about humility and collective achievement.

After the war, Hayes returned to the reservation to find that nothing had changed—the same poverty, the same discrimination, the same lack of opportunities that had existed before he became famous. Struggling with severe PTSD, survivor guilt, and alcoholism, he was arrested 52 times for public intoxication between 1945 and 1955. On January 24, 1955, at age 32, Ira Hayes froze to death in an irrigation ditch on the Gila River Reservation, less than two miles from where he was born.

His story inspired Johnny Cash's "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" and Clint Eastwood's film "Flags of Our Fathers," ensuring that the man behind the iconic image would never be forgotten.

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