Other veterans could describe their specific roles — what they had operated, what missions they had flown, what positions they had held — in ways that made concrete the nature and extent of their contribution.

Code Talkers, bound by classification orders, could not make that case fully.

The GI Bill and other veterans’ benefits were available to Navajo veterans, as to other veterans.

But the discrimination that returning Native veterans faced on the reservation and in surrounding communities was real and documented.

The Veterans Administration was not consistently welcoming to Native veterans who sought the benefits they were legally entitled to.

Employment discrimination on and off the reservation meant that military service did not translate automatically into economic opportunity.