The Native Marine In America’s Most Famous WWII Photograph – And What Happened After He Came Home

His family was from the Gila River reservation.

His community was the Akimel O’odham.

The ground that made the most sense, in terms of the life he had lived, was the Arizona desert where he had been born and where he had died.

But he was buried at Arlington, in the national cemetery, because the nation had decided he was its symbol.

He was twenty-six years old when the photograph was taken.

He was thirty-two when he died.