Data from the hot plasma instruments on the Dynamics Explorer 1 and 2 spacecraft have been used to study the injection, drift, and subsequent precipitation of suprathermal positive ions in the auroral zone. The observation at both high and low altitudes of electrons inverted ''V'' events in the boundary plasma sheet (BPS) and of ion ''bands'' (energy decreasing with decreasing latitude) in the adjacent central plamsa sheet (CPS) leads to the following ion injection model: upward-moving energetic ion beams are injected onto BPS magnetic field lines by the electrostatic potential drops associated with electron inverted V's. As the ion beams move toward the equator and into the conjugate hemisphere they are converted to lower latitudes and into the CPS. The energy-latitude dependence of the ions bands, coupled with concurrent ion convection measurements, indicate that the ion distributions are primarily O+, in agreement with their postulated ionospheric source.