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Native Americans enlist for turf and tribe
They continue to join the military in larger numbers than almost any other minority group – many out of a sense of tribal duty.
By Jennifer Miller | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the August 20, 2007 edition
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Fort Defiance, Ariz. - In a grassy clearing amid the dusty hills here, Donovan Nez bends over a bubbling spring. Mr. Nez, 26, is a Navajo Indian and a former marine. Though he wears his dark hair cropped in a military cut, he looks very much the civilian on this Sunday afternoon. He balances on a fallen log, turning every so often to flash a boyish smile at his younger cousins who cluster behind him on the bank.
"When you drink this water," says Nez, "it seeps into every crevice of your body. It rejuvenates you."
Nez turns back to the water at the site known as Swiffle Spring, located on the Navajo Indian reservation just below the Chuksa mountains here, and bows his head. He whispers a prayer in Navajo, then English.
"Mother Earth, ease our physical and mental burdens. Thank you for all you have given us. For safety and strength. For this sacred water." He places his hands in the spring.
When Nez thanks Mother Earth for protection, he often has something specific in mind – namely Iraq, where he served two tours with the US Marines.
Nez believes his faith and traditions helped bring him back safely from the war. More than that, they help explain why he and other native Americans enlist in the military in such large numbers – even though many resent the way the US government has treated their people over the centuries.
They feel an unusual obligation to protect the tribal communities they belong to and, more specifically, the land they've inhabited for generations. The result is that native Americans tend to join the service at higher per capita rates than almost any other minority group.
According to the Pentagon, they represent less than 1 percent of the population, but makeup about 1.6 percent of the armed forces. In some tribal communities, 1 out of every 200 adults have served in the military. Currently, nearly 20,000 native American and Alaskan native people are in uniform.
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One reason for the high participation rates, to be sure, are the career and economic benefits. "The military is seen as an opportunity," says Mark St. Pierre, an historian who has lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for 35 years. His book, "Of Uncommon Birth: Dakota sons in Vietnam," follows native Americans who fought in Southeast Asia. He estimates that nearly 50 percent of males on the reservation have served in the military. "People on this reservation realize they will get VA benefits," he says, "that they might go to college."
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