‘Ira Hayes’: A Native American Warrior With PTSD

A biography on the World War II Marine who became a hero at Iwo Jima

Ira Hayes and the image that made him famous and, perhaps, ruined his life. (Courtesy of Tom Holm)

Ira Hayes was one of the six Marines photographed raising the flag at Iwo Jima. In popular memory, he is the Native American who became a Marine hero at Iwo Jima and died at 36, a drunk.

“Ira Hayes: The Akimel O’odham Warrior, World War II, and the Price of Heroism” by Tom Holm shows that there was more to Hayes. It reveals him to be an intelligent, sensitive man scarred by Post Traumatic Shock Disorder (PTSD) who, due to ignorance about the disorder, was never allowed to heal.

Holm examines Hayes and his tribe, the Akimel O’odham. With long military traditions, the tribe was a longtime U.S. ally against Spain, Mexico, and other Native American tribes. Yet ultimately, the tribe’s reward was to be robbed of their water rights and wealth. They became impoverished in the late 19th century.

Hayes, coming from a warrior tradition, fit naturally in the Marines and became an outstanding soldier. Holm shows him as smart, outgoing, and sensitive in high school. In boot camp, he was disciplined and sober, the one who did not drink on leave. Hays became parachute and Raider qualified. In combat on Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, he proved a brave and competent combatant.

The Misfortune of Fame

Being photographed raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima led to Hayes’s unwanted participation in the Seventh War Bond tour.

By Iwo Jima’s end, he was suffering from PTSD, then called combat fatigue. He watched close buddies die, comrades at Bougainville and Iwo Jima. He felt that the dead were the heroes, not him. Tribal tradition taught modesty as an important warrior value and discouraged contact with the dead, which were ever-present at Iwo Jima.

Instead of needed rest, Hayes was forced into public view. His actions were spotlighted, and celebratory drinks were pushed on him. Under this stress, all three surviving Marines overindulged. Hayes, a Native American, was singled out for drinking. Pulled from the tour, he was sent back to his unit without being allowed home leave.

There were other stresses as well. A dead buddy, one of the other flag raisers, went uncredited. Hayes was ordered to stay silent about this fact, and left the Marines to be free to tell the truth. Then he returned to an impoverished existence. After defending his county, he could not vote in Arizona. With untreated PTSD, made to feel worthless, and singled out and punished for his drinking because he was a “drunken Indian,” he spiraled down.

Holm’s book makes for grim reading, but it remains worthwhile. Although a tragedy, Ira Hayes’s life is worth honoring.

A biography of the Native American captured in the famous Iwo Jima photographer of World War II.

‘Ira Hayes: the Akimel O’odham Warrior, World War II, and the Price of Heroism’ By Tom Holm Twelve, Aug. 1, 2023 Hardcover: 320 pages