| Johnny Cash – The Ballad of Ira Hayes (Peter La Farge cover) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Ira Hamilton Hayes (January 12, 1923 – January 24, 1955) was a United States Marine of Native American descent and survivor of World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima. He was one of six Marines, along with a US Navy corpsman, in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. After the war, Hayes attempted 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'?" Referring to his alcoholism, he once said: "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." After the war, Hayes accumulated some fifty arrests for drunkenness. On January 24, 1955, Hayes was found dead near an abandoned hut close to his home on the Gila River Indian Reservation. He had been drinking and playing cards with several other men, including his brothers Kenny and Vernon, and another fellow Pima named Henry Setoyant. The coroner concluded that Hayes' death was due to exposure and too much alcohol. Ira Hayes was 32. Hayes was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. At the funeral, fellow flag-raiser Rene Gagnon said of him: "Let's say he had a little dream in his heart that someday the Indian would be like the white man — be able to walk all over the United States." http://tinyurl.com/r7s4k |
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