CHORUS:   Call him drunken Ira Hayes   He won't answer anymore   Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian    Nor the Marine that went to war      Gather round me people there's a story I would tell   About a brave young Indian you should remember well   From the land of the Pima Indian    A proud and noble band   Who farmed the Phoenix valley in Arizona land      Down the ditches for a thousand years    The water grew Ira's peoples' crops   'Till the white man stole the water rights    And the sparklin' water stopped      Now Ira's folks were hungry    And their land grew crops of weeds   When war came, Ira volunteered    And forgot the white man's greed      CHORUS:   Call him drunken Ira Hayes   He won't answer anymore   Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian    Nor the Marine that went to war         There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,    Two hundred and fifty men   But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again      And when the fight was over    And when Old Glory raised   Among the men who held it high    Was the Indian, Ira Hayes      CHORUS:   Call him drunken Ira Hayes   He won't answer anymore   Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian    Nor the Marine that went to war      Ira Hayes returned a hero    Celebrated through the land   He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand      But he was just a Pima Indian   No water, no home, no chance   At home nobody cared what Ira'd done    And when did the Indians dance      CHORUS:   Call him drunken Ira Hayes   He won't answer anymore   Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian    Nor the Marine that went to war      Then Ira started drinkin' hard;   Jail was often his home   They'd let him raise the flag and lower it   like you'd throw a dog a bone!      He died drunk early one mornin'    Alone in the land he fought to save   Two inches of water in a lonely ditch    Was a grave for Ira Hayes      CHORUS:   Call him drunken Ira Hayes   He won't answer anymore   Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian    Nor the Marine that went to war      Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes    But his land is just as dry   And his ghost is lyin' thirsty    In the ditch where Ira died