In the six years between the dedication of the Marine Corps War Memorial and his death, he had been reduced by many accounts to a figure of tragedy rather than seen as the complex human being he was.

How Later America Tried To Understand Him

The years after Hayes’s death produced a series of attempts to tell his story — in music, in film, and in other cultural forms — that collectively reveal how difficult it has been for American culture to see him clearly.

The most famous of these is “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” written by Peter LaFarge and recorded most influentially by Johnny Cash in 1964.

The song tells the broad outlines of Hayes’s story — the flag raising, the bond tour, the post-war struggle, the death — in a ballad form that emphasizes tragedy and injustice.