Tormented Flag Bearer

BOSS_Fall 10 10/7:Layout 1 10/14/10 6:49 PM Page 6 PROFILE All he did was help erect a flag on top of a hill. How could he feel like a Tormented Flag Bearer hero when the 36-day battlen resulted i more than 26,000 Allied casualties, Immortalized in an iconic photograph, including the deaths of 5,931 Marines, Hayes wondered? Ira Hayes didn’t embrace fame’s salute “Most of our buddies are gone,” he told The New York Times in August 1946, on the first anniversary of the BY MARIA BLACKBURN victory over Japan. “Three of the men who raised the flag are gone. We hit the beach on Iwo with 250 men and left Ira Hamilton Hayes never wanted to around the world and became a national with 27 a month and a half later. I still be a hero. The quiet, self-effacing young symbol of victory and hope. Hayes think about that all the time.” man was loyal to his family and his embarked on a 33-city war bond tour A Pima Indian, Hayes was born fellow U.S. Marines, proud to serve his with Rene Gagnon and John Bradley, Jan. 12, 1923, on the Gila River Indian country during World War II, but was the two other men in the photo who Reservation in Sacaton, Ariz., and not the type of person to seek recognition. survived the battle, and was heralded raised in a one-room adobe hut. Nine If an Associated Press photographer by throngs of Americans and paraded months after the attack on Pearl named Joe Rosenthal hadn’t snapped an before reporters and photographers who Harbor, Hayes left school to enlist in image of 22-year-old Hayes and five chronicled his every move. The photo of the Marines. He was 19. other soldiers raising a U.S. flag on the the six men struggling against the wind The fighting on Iwo Jima was bru- island of Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945, few to raise the flag adorned a U.S. postal tal. Two out of three Americans who people outside of Hayes’ family and stamp, was memorialized in dozens of fought in the battle were killed or friends would know who he was today. books and movies and today stands wounded. Hayes and the other soldiers But in 1/400th of a second, the time frozen in time in bronze as the Marine in the photo were just following orders it took to capture the photograph, Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va. to run a telephone line up the mountain Hayes’ life changed forever. The photo The photo made Hayes famous. and replace the flag another team had taken on top of Japan’s Mount Suribachi He spent the 10 years after it was taken raised earlier in the day with a larger landed on the front page of newspapers trying to live it down. one. It was an easy, 40-minute climb 6 BOSS ᔢ FALL / WINTER 2 0 1 0 BOSS_Fall 10 10/7:Layout 1 10/14/10 6:49 PM Page 7 and there was no enemy fire. Once the war ended, Hayes tried to However, the journey gave Hayes lit- “We were just there,” John Bradley put the photograph behind him. He tle peace of mind. During the next told one of his children in Flags of Our returned home and got a job as a day decade, his life was marked by more than Fathers, by his son James Bradley laborer, only to be sought out by photo- 50 arrests for drunkenness, many of (Bantam Books, 2000). “We put a pole graph-seeking tourists and greeted by which made the papers. “His attitude was up and someone snapped a picture.” fellow Pimas as “Iwo Jima hero!” He not bitterness, but some hurt that I But the photo became a national continued to drink heavily. couldn’t sort out,” Pauline Bates Brown, a sensation. Once they were identified in Distressed that one of the dead men caseworker for the U.S. Indian Service, the photo, Gagnon, Hayes and Bradley in the photograph had been mis-identi- told James Bradley. On Jan. 24, 1955, were dismissed from battle so they could fied, Hayes took action. Five months Hayes was found dead. He had wandered return to the U.S. to raise money for the after he came home, he walked off the outside after an all-night card game and war. “It’s funny what a picture can do,” reservation and hitchhiked more than passed out. His death from overexposure Hayes wrote home to his parents. All of 1,300 miles in three days to Weslaco, and alcohol at the age of 32 came almost a sudden, they were celebrities, lauded Texas, the boyhood home of his friend 10 years after he was photographed rais- by the title “hero” at every turn. Harlon Block. Belle Block had always ing the flag on Iwo Jima. Hayes, whose culture discouraged recognized her son in the photo, but the Hayes was buried at Arlington individuals from seeking recognition, man had been identified by the U.S. National Cemetery. Some people might was so tortured by the “hero” title that Marines as Hank Hansen. Hayes con- have called him a hero, but he would he drank to excess. In May 1945, a firmed to Ed Block that it was his son have been unlikely to agree. superior officer attending a re-enact- Harlon in the photo. “It did not seem “People referred to us as heroes. ment of the flag raising at Soldier Field right for such a brave Marine as your We certainly weren’t heroes and I speak in Chicago saw that Hayes was so son not to get any national recognition,” for the rest of the guys as well,” John drunk he couldn’t even stand on his Hayes wrote to Belle Block. Two years Bradley told his son James in Flags of own. He ordered the young soldier to later, the Marines wrote to the Blocks, Our Fathers. “The heroes of Iwo Jima rejoin his unit in the Pacific. confirming the military’s mistake. are the guys who didn’t come back.” WWW . DIXONVALVE . COM FALL / WINTER 2 0 1 0 ᔢ BOSS 7.

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