Ira Hayes enlisted in the Marines as a teenager in Phoenix, leaving the Pima Indian Reservation.  He of course went through boot camp and his unit was in the Iwo Jima Invasion.  It was Ira Hayes unit who fought to the top.  A group of the Marines there found an old pipe, tied the flag on it, built up a cairn of stones and raised it.   Hayes of course became a hero, taken from action and brought back to the States and used for propaganda speaking sessions, signing his autograph, and selling War Bonds.  He never saw action again.Hayes couldn't handle the new found fame, when he went to these banquets and such honouring him they served alcohol and Hayes sadly found it helped him forget those buddies he left in battle.  He could never accept that because of being somewhere at the right time, he became a hero for putting up a flag.  When he was discharged at the end of the war, the fame continued for a while around Phoenix and other places in Arizona, but alcohol now had a hold of
him and he sank deeper and deeper in to living in the bottle on the reservation.  He died at an early age of alcohol poisoning and exposure to the Arizona Summer.  
He could never get over those squad mates who went on to die in action while he lived the high life.  Like so many he couldn't handle it.

The Ballad Of Ira Hayes

Ira Hayes,
Ira Hayes

CHORUS:
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

Gather round me people there's a story I would tell
About a brave young Indian you should remember well
From the land of the Pima Indian
A proud and noble band
Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land

Down the ditches for a thousand years
The water grew Ira's peoples' crops
'Till the white man stole the water rights
And the sparklin' water stopped

Now Ira's folks were hungry
And their land grew crops of weeds
When war came, Ira volunteered
And forgot the white man's greed

CHORUS:

There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

CHORUS:

Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance

CHORUS:

Then Ira started drinkin' hard;
Jail was often his home
They'd let him raise the flag and lower it
like you'd throw a dog a bone!

He died drunk one mornin'
Alone in the land he fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch
Was a grave for Ira Hayes

CHORUS:

Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes
But his land is just as dry
And his ghost is lyin' thirsty
In the ditch where Ira died.