Veterans Day and the Native American Veteran
"This is a deep patriotism, a belief that, despite all that has happened, the United States can be better, and we want to be part of that."
This past week has been the centenary commemoration of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and for the first time in 97 years, the public has been invited to lay flowers at the Tomb at Arlington National Cemetery. The very first group opening this special commemoration were members of the Crow Tribe (Apsáalooke) in Montana- the Crow honor guard were all descendants of last war chief of the Crow, Chief Plenty Coups. He spoke at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1921 to represent Native Americans. After he spoke, he laid his staff (called a coup stick) and war bonnet at the Tomb.
After the Crow honor guard laid their flowers, other members of the Crow tribe including children in full ceremonial regalia laid their flowers at the Tomb.
The story of Native American military service is a fascinating but complex story. It has long been held that of all the racial and ethnic groups in America, Native Americans (which include Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians) serve in the military at a higher rate. As the military did not keep close tallies of Native Americans over the years enlisting due to not having a category for them (many Native Americans ended up being categorized as "other" or "multi-racial"), the extent of Native American military service may never be fully known. More recent scholarship has indicated it has been well in excess of most other groups given the fraction of population made up of Native Americans.
Military service by Native Americans has always been a bit of a puzzle. Why fight for America given the long history of marginalization, racist policies, massacres, economic injustices and broken treaties? Given the history of the United States military's role in generations of Indian removal actions and conflicts, it elevates the history of Native American military service to a different level of what I consider unmatched patriotism.
Native Americans in the military have long been stereotyped at having some sort of innate warrior skill set that unfortunately through history has resulted in them being placed in dangerous roles- such as having them act as point in a combat environment. And while tribes like the Crow and the Sioux, like other Great Plains tribes, have warrior traditions, those traditions were always counterbalanced with peace and diplomacy. Most tribes don't have warrior traditions and some are even pacifist in their traditions.
In the early history of our nation, many Native Americans joined the military as a way of continuing their way of life, even as they were used by the military as scouts to seek out other tribes resisting removal and settlement of their lands. Many believed that serving in the Army would keep their tribe from being persecuted. Through most of the 1800s, the federal government outlawed the practicing of Native American traditions. For those that were in the military, it was a way to covertly maintain their tribal practices.
By the 1900s, the Indian wars and removal efforts were ending and for many Native Americans in the military, that led to expanded roles in active duty. It is of considerable pride amongst Native Americans that one quarter of Native American males served in the First World War despite the fact that Native Americans weren't granted American citizenship until 1924 and the right to vote until after the Second World War.
The Snyder Act of 1924, known as the Indian Citizenship Act, made all Native Americans US citizens. But the right to vote was entrusted to each state to determine who could vote. And most states excluded Native Americans from voting. The first state to allow Native Americans to vote was Arizona in 1948 after a contested case made it to their state Supreme Court. The last state to give Native Americans the right to vote was Utah in 1962.
The Second World War brought about a resurgence of tribal traditions and languages, from the Navajo Code Talkers to the Lakota Sioux protection ceremonies before their young men shipped off to Europe and the Pacific. Tribal ceremonies celebrated the return from combat- such as large luaus by the Native Hawaiians. Many of these returning celebrations were also used as healing ceremonies for returning veterans.
Recent scholarship indicates that Native Americans returning from Vietnam had lower rates of PTSD, depression and substance abuse to the general population thanks to extensive tribal ceremonies and traditions associated with healing and return from war.
Despite this, the long standing inequities amongst Native Americans still means many of the same issues that veterans grapple with, from PTSD to homelessness, are magnified in Native American communities.
“We wear the badge of our service proudly, and our veterans suffer the burdens of war with disproportionate rates of homelessness, behavioral health struggles and lack of access to health services."
-Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo. Her father was in the Marines and her mother was in the Navy
Since joining the Indian Health Service in May 2020, I have seen not just the unevenness of how the burdens of pandemic have fallen in this nation but also the day to day conditions of inequity that are the routine for Native Americans.
My time with working with Native Americans since leaving private practice has been instructive on many levels. I've had the opportunity to work with Native American veterans as patients and I've asked them about their motivations to serve despite a historical legacy with the government littered with broken promises. Like many non-Native veterans, many of them have the same motivations for joining the military. Some of them, however, told me something I had not thought of before.
It was earlier this year on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon I was talking with a veteran as we were going over his medical diagnoses. We got to talking about his time in Vietnam. I asked him “Why serve given the historical legacy of how this country as treated Native Americans?”
He got quiet for a bit, leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling as if to find the words.
What he told me I’ll never forget.
“I didn’t serve and fight for what America is. I did my time in the military because I believe in what America can be. I didn’t do it to protect our way of life. You see it. Our way of life on the Reservations is hard. No one should want this. I went in to get out the poverty. But we can do better. We gotta. What we can be is what I fought for.”
“They are acknowledging the mistreatment their tribes have suffered at the hands of the United States, yet they still imagine a different and better tribal life in the future. They are optimistic that the U.S. will honor sovereignty, which may be why so many cultural celebrations incorporate the American flag, he says. This is a deep patriotism, a belief that, despite all that has happened, the United States can be better, and we want to be part of that."
-Kevin Gover, Director of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and member of the Pawnee Tribe
To me that's patriotism distilled to its essence. To fight and celebrate not for what we were or what we are, but for what we can be.