Post-war
He appeared in two films about the battle: To the Shores of Iwo Jima (a government documentary which simply showed the color footage of the U.S. flag raising) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), the latter with fellow surviving flag raisers Bradley and Hayes. He was also part of a Rose Bowl half-time show. However, in the end, it amounted to almost nothing, and left him bitter and an alcoholic. He worked at menial jobs, but was fired from most of them, the last one on Memorial Day, 1978. He died in October the next year at age 54, of a heart attack. In his last job, he had worked as a janitor at an apartment complex in Manchester. As recorded in the book Flags of Our Fathers, in his latter years Gagnon only participated in events that were at his wife's urging, events praising the U.S. flag raising on Iwo Jima. She enjoyed the limelight, whereas he, by that time, no longer did.
| “ | At the age of 53, he bitterly inventoried his lost 'connections' - the jobs promised him by the government people when he'd been at the height of his fame, jobs that never materialized. "I'm pretty well known in Manchester," he told a reporter. "When someone who doesn't know me is introduced to me, they say 'That was you in The Photograph?' What the hell are you doing working here? If I were you, I'd have a good job and lots of money.'" | ” |
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