The island was still being fought over.

His comrades were still in the fight.

The idea of going home to be celebrated while other Marines continued to die on the same ground he had just come from was, to Hayes as he later expressed it, deeply uncomfortable.

He reportedly asked to stay with his unit.

He was ordered to go.

The Bond Tour And The Gap Between The Image And The Man

The Seventh War Loan tour began in April 1945 and took Rene Gagnon, John Bradley, and Ira Hayes across the country on a schedule that would have exhausted men in much better shape than combat veterans who had just come off one of the most brutal battles in Marine Corps history.