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Friday, December 26, 2008

This Will Show You What A Nerd I Am

So I went to look up the history of this picture after I posted my last blog.


I have to explain this to get on with the story. I am a big Johnny Cash fan. I love his music, but I just got into it about two or so years ago. I have this CD of his top hits that I listen to when I'm cleaning or getting ready for work sometimes. There is a song on it called "The Ballad of Ira Hayes". Listen to it:



The lyrics might not go exactly with the version in the video since it's live. The one I have on my CD sounds different than the video, but I'm pretty sure they didn't make music videos back then. :)Here are the lyrics:
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:]
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
He won't answer anymore
Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian
Nor the Marine that went to war

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

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

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

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


Ok, I never understood that song until fifteen minutes ago. I know all the words, and I really like the song, it just has a whole other meaning now. In the picture of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, Ira Hayes is the man to the far left. I realize now that right in the song it says he was one of the men who raised the flag, but I never put it together. The song is basically his biography. After he got out of the war he had PTSD pretty bad, but it wasn't recognized then like it is now. He began drinking heavily and I read somewhere that he was arrested over 50 times for drunkeness. I had no idea he was a real person, I thought it was just a song. He was only 34 when he died.


I guess you do learn something new every day.

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