Early Life
Hayes was born in Sacaton, Arizona, a town located in the Gila River Indian Community in Pinal County, the eldest of six children to Nancy Hamilton (1901–1972) and Joseph Hayes (1887–1978). The Hayes children were: Ira (1923–1955), Harold (1924–1925), Arlene (1926–1929), Leonard (1927–1952), Vernon (1929–1958), and Kenneth (born 1931).
Joseph Hayes was a World War I veteran who supported his family by subsistence farming and cotton harvesting. Nancy Hayes was a devout Presbyterian and a Sunday school teacher at the Assemblies of God church in Sacaton.
As a child, Hayes was remembered as being shy and sensitive by his family and friends. Sara Bernal, his first cousin, stated, " was a very quiet man, he would go days without saying anything unless you spoke to him first. The other Hayes children would play and tease me, but not Ira. He was quiet, and somewhat distant. Ira didn't speak unless spoken to. He was just like his father." His boyhood friend Dana Norris stated, "Even though I'm from the same culture, I could never get under his skin. Ira had the characteristic of not wanting to talk. But we Pimas are not prone to tooting our own horns. Ira was a quiet guy, such a quiet guy." Despite this, Hayes was a precocious child who displayed an impressive grasp of the English language, a language that many Pimas did not know how to speak. He was also a voracious reader, learning how to read and write by age four.
In 1932, the family settled in Bapchule, Arizona, located approximately 12 miles northwest of Sacaton. The Hayes children attended grade school in Sacaton and high school at the Phoenix Indian School in Phoenix, Arizona. Esther Monahan, one of his classmates, stated, "Ira wasn't like the other guys. He was shy and never talked to us girls. He was so much more shy than the other Pima boys. The girls would chase him and try to hug him and kiss him, like we did with all the boys. We'd catch the other boys, who enjoyed it. But not Ira. Ira would just run away." After the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Ira confided to his classmate Eleanor Pasquale that he was determined on serving in the United States Marine Corps. Pasquale stated, "Every morning in school, would get a report on World War II. We would sing the anthems of the Army, Marines, and the Navy." In June 1942, Hayes graduated at the Phoenix Indian School and returned to the reservation.
Hayes enlisted in the Marine Forces Reserve on August 24, 1942.
Hayes had been trained at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California, and went on to become a paratrooper at Marine Corps Base San Diego and had a codename of Chief Falling Cloud. On December 2, 1942, he joined Company B, 3rd Parachute Battalion, Divisional Special Troops, U.S. 3rd Marine Division, at Camp Elliott, California. On March 14, 1943, Hayes sailed for New Caledonia with the 3rd Parachute Battalion. Hayes served a tour of duty there and first saw combat in the Bougainville Campaign.
The Marine Corps parachute units were disbanded in February 1944, and Hayes transferred to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, U.S. 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California. Hayes agreed to serve a second tour of duty, and sailed to Hawaii in September 1944.
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