He was not the only Native veteran of World War II who came home to find that the country had not kept its implicit promise that service would mean recognition, that recognition would mean opportunity, that opportunity would mean a life.

He was the most visible, because of the photograph.

His visibility made his struggle public in a way that others’ struggles were not.

His visibility has also, over the decades, made his story available to be told in ways that others’ stories have not been.

He died young.

He is buried far from the land that made him.

His image stands in bronze at the edge of the capital.

And the community he came from is still there, still on the Gila River, still farming with water that was partially restored half a century after his death, still remembering him as one of their own.