01/26/2026
WAR HERO—Saluting a man who you’ve seen many times but you may not have known it. Today would have been his 100th birthday.
Ira Hamilton Hayes was born on January 12, 1923, an Akimel O'odham Native American and member of the Gila River Indian Community in south central Arizona. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on August 26, 1942. He was 19 years old.
Hayes completed basic training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego and then went on to complete Marine Airborne training at nearby Camp Gillespie. From there he was assigned as a Private First Class to the U.S. Marine 3rd Parachute Battalion—later the 3rd Parachute Regiment—part of the Divisional Special Troops of the 3rd Marine Division.
PFC Hayes' first combat assignment in WWII was on Guadalcanal. He then went ashore at Bougainville on December 4, 1943. For the Paramarines it was a trial by fire. PFC Hayes carried a Browning Automatic Rifle and was in the thick of the fighting.
After Bougainville, the Paramarines of the 3rd Parachute Battalion returned to the States and were reassigned to the newly activated 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. The Paramarines, while no longer serving as a special unit, became a pillar of the division and assisted other troops as they trained for a special mission—the capture of a Japanese Island deemed mission critical to ending the war, Iwo Jima
On February 19, 1945, PFC Hayes went ashore on Iwo Jima as part of the first wave. It is from his role there that you would recognize him.
In the fighting, PFC Hayes was one of the men ordered to reach the top of Mount Suribachi and raise a flag there. You know him as the last man standing in the back with his hands raised just releasing the flag pole in the famous “Flag Raising at Iwo Jima”.
The photo of PFC Hayes and the other five men was taken by photographer Joe Rosenthal and distributed by Associated Press. It became an overnight sensation and eventually the basis for the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
It’s important to know that only three of the six men who raised the flag survived. For them and for other comrades killed on Iwo Jima, PFC Hayes carried a deep sense of survivor’s guilt. It plagued him until his passing in 1955. And yet his story in this regard contributed to the growth of better services for our Veterans and has shaped how we address post-traumatic stress care.
In November 1954, the US Marine Corps War Memorial was unveiled at a dedication ceremony in Washington. President Dwight Eisenhower praised PFC Hayes as “a national war hero.”
Happy Birthday out there, Paramarine. Semper Fi.
Photo, PFC Ira Hayes on return from Iwo Jima. Courtesy of the National Archives
