D-Day was one of the most monumental days in the history of mankind. Don’t take my word for it, watch this video from Andy Rooney, who saw it with his own eyes. Share it with everyone you know, especially your kids.

Ira Hayes drank himself unconscious after watching America turn his dead friends into a photograph. By 1945, millions recognized the image instantly. Six Marines raising an American flag on Iwo Jima. The photograph became one of the most famous wartime images ever taken. Newspapers printed it. Statues were modeled after it. War bonds were sold across the country. To America, it looked like victory. To Ira Hayes, it looked like a graveyard. Three of the men in the photograph were already dead by the time the country celebrated it. And Hayes could not stop thinking about them. When the flag went up on Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945, the battle for Iwo Jima was far from over. Marines were still being torn apart by artillery, mortars, hidden machine gun nests, and Japanese soldiers in tunnels. The black volcanic sand smelled like sulfur and blood. Bodies covered the beaches so densely that some Marines later admitted they stopped looking down while walking. Ira Hayes was only 22 years old. A Pima Native American from Arizona, he had already survived some of the worst fighting in the Pacific by the time he climbed Suribachi carrying the replacement flag. The famous photograph happened almost accidentally. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the moment in seconds. Then the image exploded across America. Suddenly, Hayes was no longer just a Marine. He became a national symbol. The government immediately pulled Hayes and two surviving flag-raisers from combat and sent them across the country for the Seventh War Loan Drive. Cities packed with cheering crowds welcomed them like celebrities. Politicians shook their hands. Reporters followed constantly. But something felt deeply wrong to Hayes. The country celebrated the photograph while the men inside it were disappearing. During speeches, people asked about heroism, courage, and glory. Hayes kept thinking about the Marines who never came home. Especially Harlon Block. He became obsessed with correcting misidentifications in the photograph. Military officials initially got one flag-raiser wrong. Hayes privately carried enormous guilt because Block’s mother was grieving without proper recognition. Most people around him wanted silence. Hayes would not let it go. At one point, he reportedly hitchhiked over 1,300 miles from Arizona to Texas to tell Harlon Block’s parents the truth. Not for publicity. Not for money. Because dead Marines deserved honesty more than America deserved mythology. By then, Hayes was already struggling. Crowds overwhelmed him. Friends said alcohol became the only way to numb the memories. The memories never stopped. Not the gunfire. Not the bodies. Not the faces. Especially the faces. Most Americans saw six heroes raising a flag. Ira Hayes saw the three men who never made it off the island alive. By the early 1950s, his life collapsed under alcoholism, arrests, and emotional isolation. Then, on January 24, 1955, Ira Hayes was found dead in the desert near his home in Arizona. He was 32. The official cause involved exposure and alcohol. Marines believed part of him had never really left Iwo Jima. Years earlier, a little girl asked him what it felt like to become famous after raising the flag. He answered quietly: “How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me… and only 27 walked off alive?”