The Native Marine In America’s Most Famous WWII Photograph – And What Happened After He Came Home

He persisted anyway.

It was, in some ways, the most consistent sustained effort he made during these years, and it succeeded.

The Native Veteran In The American Story

Ira Hayes was not the only Native American veteran whose post-war experience revealed the contradictions in how the country treated its Indigenous service members.

Native Americans fought in World War II in large numbers and in every branch of the service.

The Navajo Code Talkers — men who used their language to develop an unbreakable battlefield communications code in the Pacific Theater — are perhaps the most famous example, but Native Americans served in the infantry, in the armored divisions, in the Navy, in the Army Air Forces, across the full range of American military operations.