Another suspect quote: Ira Hayes

[Jonathan Lighter]

My university's ProQuest Boston Globe turns up nothing remotely like the
quote. In fact, the first time the Globe seems to hav mentioned Hayes at all
was in connection with a controversial TV drama called "The American" aired
in 1960 (with Lee Marvin as Ira Hayes).

Tony Curtis starred as Hayes in the 1962 film "The Outsider."

It is conceivable that the line came from one of these heavily fictionalized
dramas, but IMDb doesn't indicate it's in "The Outsider." It doesn't list
"The American."

My two cents is that the quote is too long and detailed to be included in
the script of a TV show in 1960.  My three cents is that it's too depressing
to have been reported in a newspaper in 1945 (coming from an Iwo Jima
flag-raiser) or, frankly, at any time before the Vietnam War.

JL
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 7:46 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Another suspect quote: Ira Hayes
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jonathan Lighter raises an intriguing question about a quotation
> attributed to Ira Hayes, one of the soldiers that famously raised the
> second flag on Iwo Jima:
> > "How could I feel like a hero when only five men in my platoon of 45
> > survived, when only 27 men in my company of 250 managed to escape
> > death or injury?"
>
> I have located a book that contains a citation for this quotation to
> the Boston Globe in 1945. However, I do not think that I have access
> to a database containing the Boston Globe in 1945. ProQuest databases
> have many flavors. PR from the firm trumpets a database with Boston
> Globe coverage from 1872 to 1979. But access is carefully rationed
> because knowledge is dangerous.
>
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 10:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Another suspect quote: Ira Hayes
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Thousands of RGs for this quote about heroism and fame, attributed to
> Cpl.
> > Ira Hayes, one of the Iwo Jima flag-raisers.  Some recent sources claim
> tha=
> > t
> > Hayes said it "to reporters" shortly after he attended the dedication of
> th=
> > e
> > Iwo Jima Memorial at Arlington in 1954:
> >
> > =93How could I feel like a hero when only five men in my platoon of 45
> > survived, when only 27 men in my company of 250 managed to escape death
> or
> > injury?=94
> >
> > Widely cited since, including at a DoD site
> > http://www.defense.gov/specials/nativeamerican01/flag.html   I can find
> no
> > evidence of the quote's existence (GB, NewspaperArchive, ProQuest, TIME)
> > before it appeared on p. 19 of the bestseller _Flags of Our Fathers_, by
> > James Bradley and Ron Powers (2000), written 45 years after Hayes's
> > premature death.
> >
> > The book includes source notes, but no source is given for this quote.
>  The
> > context suggests that Bradley was innocently paraphrasing what
> > Hayes presumably thought about being acclaimed as a hero.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> > --=20
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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