Ira Hayes and Other Heroes

Ira Hamilton Hayes (1923 – 1955) was Pima Native American and member of the Gila River Indian Community. He was in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and a veteran of the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. Hayes was one of five Marines (along with a Navy medic) shown in Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi.

Hayes (on the far left of the photograph) became a national hero, along with the two other survivors of the famous photograph, Rene Gagnon and John Bradley. Hayes's story drew particular attention because he was Native American.


After the war Hayes was arrested some fifty times for drunkenness. He apparently suffered greatly from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which was not well known or understood at the time. Hayes was found dead in 1955 at the age of 32, face down and lying in his own vomit and blood near an abandoned hut close to his home on the Gila River Indian Reservation. He had been drinking and playing cards with several other men. The coroner concluded that Hayes' death was due to both exposure and alcohol. Hayes is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Ira Hayes appeared in the 1949 John Wayne film Sands of Iwo Jima along with the two other surviving fellow flag raisers. All three men played themselves in the movie when Wayne hands the flag to be raised to the three men. (The actual flag that was raised on Mount Suribachi is used in the film.) The life of Ira Hayes was featured in a book by James Bradley called Flags of Our Fathers
(2000).














http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Hayes

Johnny Cash (who was actually Scottish and not part Native American as he had believed for a time) performed “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” by Peter LaFarge. Cash took the song to No. 3 on the Billboard country music chart in 1964. Here are some of the lyrics--

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

Ira returned a hero

Celebrated through the land

He was wined and speeched and honored
Everybody shook his hand

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

Another Native American war hero was Billy Walkabout (1949-2006) who served in the US Army during the Viet Nam War. He was a native Cherokee from Oklahoma. He died at the age of 57. He is also buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Billy Walkabout was one of the most decorated soldiers of that war. He received the Purple Heart, five Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in Vietnam in 1968 while with U.S. Army Company F, 58th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. The citation states that—

Sgt. Walkabout (then a Specialist) distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions during a long range reconnaissance patrol southwest of Hue. After successfully ambushing an enemy squad on a jungle trail, his patrol radioed for immediate extraction by helicopter.

When the helicopters arrived the lead man was seriously wounded by hostile machine gun fire. Walkabout started shooting at the enemy while the wounded man was pulled back to safety. Walkabout then administered first aid to the soldier. As the wounded solider was being loaded onto the helicopter, enemy elements again attacked the team.

While maneuvering under heavy fire Walkabout started shooting at the enemy again. A mine then blasted through Walkabout’s team, killing three men and wounding all the others. While he was wounded himself, Walkabout rushed from man to man administering first aid, bandaging one soldier's severe chest wound and reviving another soldier by heart massage. He then coordinated gunship and tactical air strikes on the enemy's positions.

When evacuation helicopters arrived again, he worked single-handedly under fire to board his disabled comrades. Only when the casualties had been evacuated and friendly reinforcements had arrived, did he allow himself to be extracted.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1799091/posts

Lori Ann Piestewa (1979 - 2003) was the first woman in the US armed forces to be killed in the 2003 Iraq War. She was also the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving with the US military. She was a member of the Hopi Tribe from Arizona.

PFC Piestewa was a member of the US Army's 507th Army Maintenance Company, a support unit of clerks, cooks, and repair personnel. Her company was traveling in a convoy through the desert and was meant to bypass Nasiriyah in southern Iraq during the opening days of the war.

The convoy became lost and ran into an ambush in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. Under heavy enemy fire, PFC Piestewa drove at a high speed, successfully evading the enemy fire until an RPG hit the front-left wheel-well of her Humvee. The force of the explosion sent her vehicle into the rear of a disabled tractor-trailer. Three other soldiers in the Humvee died in the crash.

Piestewa was injured in the ambush, as was her friend Jessica Lynch. Both Piestewa and Lynch survived but were wounded. They were taken prisoner, with Piestewa dying soon after of her wounds. Piestewa and her company were first considered missing in action. Later it was learned that Piestewa and several other members of her company did not survive the ambush.

Piestewa was a single mother of two children at the time of her death. She was 24.

"Pendleton 8"

A couple of years ago it was disturbing to read the story of a young Marine who had gone to the same Mukilteo high school as my kids. The Marine was being held in shackles in a San Diego military prison while awaiting trial for the April 2006 killing of a man in Iraq. The young Marine was on his third combat tour of duty. According to military reports, Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and six other Marines and a Navy medic plotted to seize and kill a suspected insurgent and then staged a scene to cover it up.

Reports assert that four of the men went to find their intended target but he wasn't home, instead grabbing a neighbor. The neighbor was led to a crater left by a roadside bomb, then tied up and tossed in. A sergeant gave the order to several fellow Marines to shoot the man.

Pennington was not one of those who shot. The men then placed a shovel and an AK-47 next to the body to make it appear the victim had been planting a roadside bomb. This occurred in the village of Hamdania Iraq.

The squad was incarcerated in Iraq and returned to the US in May 2006. The men were held in continued custody in the maximum security division of the Camp Pendleton brig as potentially dangerous and violent. Supporters dubbed them the "Pendleton 8" and conducted rallies in front of Camp Pendleton's main gate.


While he was awaiting trial, the presumption of innocence was abandoned and Pennington was kept in shackles. He also had difficulties getting medical treatment. His normal discharge date passed while he was in custody and his pay was stopped even though he had not yet been convicted of anything.

His parents set up a web site which told the story of their son, requested contributions for a defense fund, and contained pictures of supportive demonstrations in California and of neighbors holding candlelight vigil. They hired a civilian attorney to work with the three military lawyers for Pennington.

Within months of being accused, five of the eight men (including Pennington) pleaded guilty to a variety of reduced charges. The other three (including the sergeant) were tried and convicted. The sergeant, described as the leader and mastermind of the killing, was sentenced to fifteen years, later reduced to eleven.

As part of a plea bargain, Pennington pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy. He was not the first to plead guilty. He was to serve either the sentence imposed by the military judge or eight years, whichever was less. While awaiting sentencing the conditions of his confinement were improved.

Evidence was presented at the five-day sentencing hearing. On the website his family writes--

"We listened to Rob's testimony about that night, but also heard a lot of information that we never heard before about the previous two deployments. . . one of the most important things we learned in that courtroom was that Fallujah was far more horrific, far more devastating than any of us really understood. We watched film, listened to testimony and realized how devastating this was for the boys who fought that bloody battle."

"We knew something was wrong when Rob came home, but we took his word that he could handle it. That's what those grunts do, right? Suck it up . . . We did not think he was in any shape to return to Iraq after Fallujah, but we took the easy route and let him tell us what we really wanted to hear -- that he was really okay."

The judge sentenced Robert Pennington to fourteen years in a military prison, which was limited to 8 years by the plea bargain. He was also to receive a dishonorable discharge. Then in 2007 his commanding general made a clemency decision that reduced the sentence to 21 months of confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

Except for the sergeant who is still seeking an appeal and sentence reduction, none of the eight served more than 15 months behind bars due to a combination plea deals and clemency.

In December 2008 Robert Pennington was "working hard at a tack and feed store in Del Mar California as a truck loader and driver, doing well."

http://www.defendrob.com/

Japanese Gulch

The Mukilteo Lumber Company was started in 1903 and its name was changed to Crown Lumber Company in 1909. It was closed in 1930. (See my other post about Mukilteo).

The photographs shown here primarily come from http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wasigs/SOUNDER0806JapanTownPhotos.htm .

Many of the lumber company workers were Japanese immigrants whose families lived in company housing in an area called “Jap Gulch,” later changed to “Japan Gulch” and “Japanese Gulch.” "Although Everett’s strong labor force held no quarter for cheap labor and other towns in the area drove out Japanese workers, Mukilteo residents came to terms with their Japanese neighbors and were able to live in harmony." http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8422

Nearby Everett Washington was a strong

"union town" and those union members probably disapproved of workers who worked for less. There were many incidents of violence surrounding the Everett unions, lumber mills and strikes during that time period. (See my other post about the "Everett Massacre" of 1916). Still, it appears that Japanese Americans and the other residents of Mukilteo got along well.

Mas Odoi, shown here, (reported by author Margaret Riddle to be in his mid-80s when she quoted him in her 2007 essay) "was born in Japanese Gulch and has returned to visit many times. In Mas’s words, 'When we moved away, we never found a place as nice to live.' Odoi was responsible for creating a monument in memory of the Japanese community at Mukilteo and their harmonious relationship with other Mukilteo residents." The monument is shown above. Here is the link to Riddle's essay-- http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8422

The following information and excerpts come from an article written by Mark Higgins, a reporter for Seattle Post-Intelligencer, titled "Japanese Settlers Played Key Role in Town's History." I'm not sure of the date of the article. Here is the site-- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/neighbors/mukilteo/jpn17.html

"Mas Odoi grew up in the gulch and has fond memories of the woods, creek and shoreline where he and his friends would play and picnic. The families raised vegetables, fished and stocked trout ponds. By the 1920s, about 150 people of Japanese descent lived in Mukilteo along with about 220 whites. Both races got along well, Odoi recalls."

"When the Great Depression hit and the mill closed, most of the Japanese-American families left Mukilteo, only to return years later as tourists. His own family moved to the Long Beach Peninsula where his father went to work at an oyster farm."

The following information is from an article written by Herald Writer Yoshiaki Hohara titled "War Takes Innocence from Japanese Gulch" at http://www.saveourgulch.com/history.htm. (It's difficult to find a date of the article, but it does state that in 2006 Mas Odoi was 84 years old. So, that means that Mas Odoi was born in 1922).

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Mas Odoi was a student at the University of Washington, and like most of his classmates he wanted to enlist immediately to fight for his country. But Mas wasn't allowed to join the military because "Japanese-Americans weren't let into the military the same way German-Americans and Italian-Americans were."

"President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order to remove Japanese immigrants and their families from the West Coast. That forced Mas and his twin brother, Hiro, to abandon their UW studies and join their parents at Minidoka Relocation Center in southern Idaho in August 1942. They were among the camp's first inhabitants. The camp reunited them with many of their friends and neighbors from Mukilteo's Japanese Gulch."

Here is a photograph of some of the "cabins" at Minidoka. Notice the tar paper on the sides of the buildings.

"As World War II escalated, Japanese Americans started to be allowed into the Army. All Japanese-Americans in Minidoka 17 and older were given a questionnaire. Do you swear loyalty to America? Do you forswear loyalty to the Japanese Emperor? Will you serve in combat with the U.S. Army? Many balked at the questions. Some people at the camp decided to fight prejudice by not fighting. Mas answered the same questions as a boy years ago in Japanese Gulch, where he played and studied with white children. He still had no intention to side with the foreign emperor. Yet he couldn't help but feel that America made a mistake by bringing Japanese-Americans to the camp."

"The brothers decided to prove their loyalty, to show they were red-blooded American boys like anyone else. Mas (top right) and Hiro (top left) joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. Army. The 442nd's slogan was "Go for broke." Combined with the 100th Infantry Battalion from Hawaii, the unit had the highest casualty rate for its size and length of service: 9,846 lives lost in pitched battles across North Africa, France and Italy."

On April 5, 1945 Mas Odoi was on the front line of the Italian battle zone some place north of Florence. The German line was half a mile away. Mas was ordered to run through the minefield along a narrow trail. A mortar dropped behind him, blowing him through the air. He landed on the dirt. He'd suffered a deep bleeding wound to his throat. He was finally able to stop the bleeding. His brother Hiro saw that Mas was wounded but continued on towards the battle line. Mas spent a month recovering in a hospital. While his injuries weren't serious enough to send him home, he didn't have another chance to fight because Germany surrendered a few days before Mas was returned to his unit.

"After the war, Mas married, raised two sons, repaired TVs and held down a series of jobs in Illinois and California. When Mas retired, he returned to the Pacific Northwest with Frances, his bride of 51 years. Mas always missed the woods and the brisk, clean air. He would love to move back to Mukilteo. He can't afford the rent. Instead, the couple lives in Renton, where things are more affordable. Sometimes he walks through Japanese Gulch. Nobody lives there anymore."

In 2000, Mas and others from the Mukilteo Historical Society dedicated the sculpture to always remember the lives and friendships that existed in Japanese Gulch before World War II.

http://www.saveourgulch.com/history.htm