But there was something else operating for Hayes and for many Native men who volunteered in those years.

Military service was a continuation of a warrior tradition that had deep roots in Akimel O’odham culture, even as that culture had been substantially transformed by federal policy.

Serving in the armed forces was also, for many Native men, one of the few avenues through which they could achieve standing in the broader American society that had otherwise kept them on the margins.

The military offered wages, travel, training, and a form of recognition that reservation life — with its chronic unemployment, limited opportunities, and structural poverty — often could not.