War of rights flag bearer
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Nine months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hayes left school to enlist in the Marines. 12, 1923, on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Sacaton, Ariz., and raised in a one-room adobe hut. I still think about that all the time.” A Pima Indian, Hayes was born Jan. We hit the beach on Iwo with 250 men and left with 27 a month and a half later. “Three of the men who raised the flag are gone. How could he feel like a hero when the 36-day battle resulted in more than 26,000 Allied casualties, including the deaths of 5,931 Marines, Hayes wondered? “Most of our buddies are gone,” he told The New York Times in August 1946, on the first anniversary of the victory over Japan. He spent the 10 years after it was taken trying to live it down.Īll he did was help erect a flag on top of a hill. postal stamp, was memorialized in dozens of books and movies and today stands frozen in time in bronze as the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va. The photo of the six men struggling against the wind to raise the flag adorned a U.S. Hayes embarked on a 33-city war bond tour with Rene Gagnon and John Bradley, the two other men in the photo who survived the battle, and was heralded by throngs of Americans and paraded before reporters and photographers who chronicled his every move. The photo taken on top of Japan’s Mount Suribachi landed on the front page of newspapersĪround the world and became a national symbol of victory and hope.
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But in 1/400th of a second, the time it took to capture the photograph, Hayes’ life changed forever. 23, 1945, few people outside of Hayes’ family and friends would know who he was today. If an Associated Press photographer named Joe Rosenthal hadn’t snapped an image of 22-year-old Hayes and five other soldiers raising a U.S. Marines, proud to serve his country during World War II, but was not the type of person to seek recognition. The quiet, self-effacing young man was loyal to his family and his fellow U.S. Tormented Flag Bearer Immortalized in an iconic photograph, Ira Hayes didn’t embrace fame’s salute BY MARIA BLACKBURN Ira Hamilton Hayes never wanted to be a hero.