The gripping, forgotten tale of Ira Hayes--a Native American icon and World War II legend who famously helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima but spent the latter half of his life haunted by being a war hero.
This is equally their story..
IRA HAYES breaks apart the complexities of Ira\'s short life in honor of all Native veterans who have been to war in the service of the United States.
All these dramas sympathize with him, but ultimately fail to see his binge drinking as his way of temporarily escaping the melancholy, the rage he felt, his sense of betrayal, and the sheer boredom of peacetime.
Ira\'s life has been a subject of two motion pictures and a television drama.
There can be no doubt that Ira suffered from PTSD, which is a compound of survivor\'s guilt, the shock of seeing death, especially of one\'s friends, and the isolation brought on by feeling that no one could understand what he had been through.
Like most surviving veterans of combat, Ira did not think of himself as a heroic figure.
It will reveal that they were primarily the product of American misconceptions about Native people, the nature of combat, and even alcoholism.
IRA HAYES will explore these fluctuating views of Ira Hayes.
He was hailed as a hero and maligned as a chronic alcoholic unable to take care of himself.
Between the time he helped raise that flag and his death--and beyond--he was the subject of more newspaper columns than any other Native person.
Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington.
The photograph was the inspiration and model for the U.
S.
Hayes, along with five other Marines, was captured in Joe Rosenthal\'s iconic photograph of raising the stars and stripes on Mount Suribachi during the battle for the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima.
IRA HAYES tells the story of Ira Hamilton Hayes from the perspective of a Native American combat veteran of the Vietnam generation.
The gripping, forgotten tale of Ira Hayes--a Native American icon and World War II legend who famously helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima but spent the latter half of his life haunted by being a war hero
