Between the time he helped raise that flag and his death—and beyond—Ira Hayes was the subject of more newspaper columns than any other Native person. He was hailed as a hero and maligned as a chronic alcoholic unable to take care of himself. IRA HAYES explores these fluctuating views of Ira Hayes. It reveals that they were primarily the product of American misconceptions about Native people, the nature of combat, and even alcoholism. Like most surviving veterans of combat, Ira did not think of himself as a heroic figure. 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. Ira’s life has been a subject of two motion pictures and a television drama. 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. 

Tom Holm is a professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. Professor Holm has published over fifty articles, books, pamphlets, government reports, book reviews and essays, editorials, and book chapters.  An enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation with Muskogee Creek ancestry, Holm has served on numerous Native American organization boards, panels, and working groups.  He is a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War and has taken part in several programs dealing with veterans' affairs.