He was small — five feet seven, about 150 pounds — but he was fit and he had the kind of physical endurance that rural agricultural life builds into a person.

He completed boot camp and then applied for and was accepted into parachute training.

The Marine Corps Parachute Battalion — the Paramarines — was an elite unit that existed briefly in the early years of the war.

The training was rigorous, the attrition rate was high, and the men who made it through were regarded as among the Corps’s finest.

Hayes completed parachute training at Camp Gillespie in California and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, earning the designation of Paramarine.

Private First Class Ira Hayes.