Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast.

Episode 430 interview with Tom Homes about his book, Ira Hayes, the Aquina Mel, a

bottom warrior, World War II, and the price of heroism.

Tom Homes, professor emeritus of the American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona,

the author of Strong Hearts Wounded Souls, the Native American Veterans of the Vietnam War,

comes on today to discuss one of the sadder tales of an American hero who gave his country

hope but was given little in return.

Professor Homes, thank you very much for being with us today.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

I'm so looking forward to this because I did not know a lot about Ira up until reading

your book and it was just a whole new world for me, but I do need to say you throw a lot

of things in there.

So by the time I finish reading your book, I feel like I got a pretty good start on medical

school.

You throw a lot of technical stuff.

You have, yeah, I feel like I'm almost ready.

So you throw in a lot of stuff about what Ira Hayes was going through, which is, and you

make this point in the book, which is the sad irony is that because of World War I and

because of World War II, we do learn a lot about how to help these people, but yet we have

to go through the wars for them to be affected for us to figure out this new branch of science

if you will.

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