- book cover - U of Nebraska Press release
Among the innumerable tribes of Native Americans, there is a rich tradition of martial culture. From the original Colonial wars through today's global war on terrorism American Indians have voluntarily answered the call in all of the branches of the US military. In the War of Independence both Native allies and Rangers who operated in same irregular manner as native war bands helped the young country to victory. At the Battle of New Orleans and battalion of Choctaw stood by Andrew Jackson. During the Civil War Cherokee General Stand Waite, who commanded not only Cherokee but Seminole and Osage infantry became the last Confederate general to surrender more than two months after Lee’s. Some 44,000 Natives answered the call to defeat the Axis powers in World War Two. Among them were some 500 men from 18 tribes that included the Navajo and Comanche nations who continued the Cherokee code talker tradition of World War One. Through World War Two's tragic hero Ira Hayes to Vietnam’s Billy Walkabout and today’s Lori Piestewa, American Indian veterans have carried forward in the finest of military traditions.
Medicine bags and dog tags by Al Carrol, in review
Professor Al Carrol, himself an un-enrolled Mescalero Apache and author, has compiled a book on the subject. Entitled Medicine bags and dog tags: American Indian veterans from colonial times to the second Iraq War, it is distributed by the University of Nebraska Press. In his book Carrol covers such little exposed subjects as the military warrior societies such as the Pima's Pariseos, the Tarahumaras' Coyote Society, and the Kiowa Black Legging Society. An entire chapter is spend debunking the native stereotype of the super-human warrior tracker as well as another on what he feels to be the truth case on a native perspective about Lori Piestewa.
Issues out of context with the subject of the book
The book, although rich as it is in lore and written from a native perspective in parts seems biased. Large tracts are given up to the debate over the correct and incorrect use of native symbols in US military heraldry. Another large section is also spent covering the American Indian Movement and their protest at Wounded Knee. While the point is made that AIM was originally founded in large part by Native veterans from the Vietnam era, it seems that other sections are robbed of attention because of it and the service of Native Americans in the Indochina region itself is nearly skipped over.
All in all the book is an educational read of a grossly under subscribed section of American military history.
