He died there on a cold January night.

He was found in the morning.

He was buried at Arlington, because the country wanted to bury him in the most honored ground it had.

But the land that made him was the Gila River land.

The people that made him were the Akimel O’odham.

The traditions that shaped his sense of obligation and honor and community were the traditions of a people who had survived centuries of change and pressure by holding onto what mattered most.

He carried those traditions into the Marines and into Iwo Jima and onto the slopes of Suribachi and into the cold Pacific morning when the flag went up.