Ira Hamilton Hayes was a Akimel O’odham, or Pima Indian, and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community. A veteran of World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima, Hayes was trained as a Paramarine in the United States Marine Corps (USMC), and became one of five Marines, along with a US Navy corpsman, immortalized in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. Wikipedia
At around the same time that La Farge was recording for Folkways, Johnny Cash heard "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," one of La Farge's most heartfelt songs, and later saw La Farge perform in New York. music.yahoo.com/ar-254822-bio--Peter-LaFarge
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Ira Hayes. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Hayes
