He might have continued toward a doctorate.

Instead, the United States entered a global war that would pull millions of people into military and industrial service.

Medicine Crow chose to serve.

For many Native veterans, military service contained a contradiction that outsiders often failed to understand.

Native nations had fought the United States, been dispossessed by federal policy, and endured generations of attempted assimilation.

Yet Native enlistment rates in American wars were often high.

Service could express commitment to homeland, community, warrior tradition, relatives in uniform, treaty relationships, or the defense of people against external threats.

It did not require forgetting what the U.S. government had done.

Medicine Crow could carry both histories at once.

When he entered the Army, he did not leave his Crow identity at the recruiting office.