http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/01/in_tribes_tug_of_enli
stment/

In tribes, tug of enlistment
Loyalty, money drive Indians in record numbers

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | October 1, 2007

KICKAPOO INDIAN RESERVATION, Kansas - Sitting behind her desk at tribal
headquarters, Candace Wishkeno proudly displayed a photo of her daughter,
Jessica, smiling broadly in her Army uniform against the backdrop of an
American flag.

"She joined to get money for school," said Wishkeno, 39, a copy of
Jessica's dog tags dangling around her neck. "She wants to go to school to
be an elementary teacher."

Jessica Wishkeno's decision to enlist - motivated by a desire to serve and
a need for money - has been replicated by a record number of Native
Americans every year since Sept. 11, 2001. On isolated reservations like
this one, where unemployment rates can run as high as 70 percent, a $20,000
signing bonus and the promise of money for college can be enticing.

In the six years since the Army began counting Native American recruits,
the numbers have soared.

Those signing up for active duty increased more than 50 percent from 683 in
2001 to 1,048 in 2006. The number who have joined the Army Reserve has
increased sevenfold over the same period - from 35 in 2001 to 253 last
year, according to the US Army Recruiting Command.

There are about 22,000 Native Americans in all the services, a proportion
corresponding to roughly twice their share of the population.

With the Army still struggling to meet its enlistment targets, recruiters
have intensified their outreach to Indian tribes, staging job fairs at
tribal events.

In places such as South Dakota, with numerous vast reservations, the
military has assigned special recruiters to focus solely on Native
Americans. In some tribes, including the Kickapoo, recruiters have
persuaded tribal elders to encourage young people to enlist in the military
as a way of preserving their tribal warrior traditions.

In Lawrence, Kan., recruiters say they find students at the Haskell Indian
Nations University more receptive than those at the nearby University of
Kansas.

"They are more patriotic. Their parents are more patriotic," Army Sergeant
Shelton J. West said while sitting in his office at the Lawrence Army
Career Center.

West, whose decade-long career as an Army recruiter has taken him to South
Dakota, Alabama, and other rural states, said that economic hardship is one
reason why Native Americans are drawn to the military. But in his
experience "when a Native American joins it is usually to defend the
country."

It is a long tradition. Despite the uneasy, often violent history with the
US government, American Indians have been putting their lives on the line
for their homeland since World War I, even though they were not granted
citizenship until 1924.

"American Indians have volunteered to serve their country at a higher
percentage in all of America's wars and conflicts than any other ethnic
group on a per capita basis," said Don Loudner, national commander of the
National American Indian Veterans Association, headquartered in Walker, La.

The Kickapoo Nation - which lived in modern-day Ohio and Michigan before
the arrival of Europeans and was forced onto steadily smaller tracts of
land - has redirected its tradition of defending its land toward the US
military.

On the Kickapoo reservation, about 35 miles north of Topeka, a POW/MIA flag
flies above the tribal office. The lead news item in the local paper last
week announced an upcoming meeting about veterans' benefits at the American
Legion hall in nearby Powhattan.

One need only walk a few steps between the tribal office and the trading
post to find at least five residents with family members now serving in the
military. And many of their kin, like 22-year-old Jessica Wishkeno, an
ammunition specialist, are heading to the front lines in Iraq, where at
least 40 Native Americans have died since the 2003 US invasion, according
to Defense Department data.

But perhaps the clearest sign here of the tribe's tradition of sacrifice is
the nearly 100 members whose names are etched on the monument in Kickapoo
Veterans Memorial Park - a strikingly high number of veterans for a tribe
that has 1,753 members, 700 of them living on the reservation.

Those who have returned from military service now have a special place in
the tribal hierarchy.

"No one is more respected in Indian society than a Native American
veteran," said Russell Bradley, 65, a Vietnam veteran and member of the
Kickapoo tribal council whose 27-year-old son, Felix, is preparing to leave
for his second tour in Iraq with the Marine Corps.

While the sense of American patriotism is strong, Bradley said, so, too, is
the lure of a paycheck.

"Most reservations are so isolated. There are not a lot of jobs," he said,
adding that farming has proven to be too risky and a frequent lack of water
has hurt chances of attracting a viable manufacturing base.

The two main sources of jobs on the reservation are a small casino, opened
in 1996, and a bare-bones convenience store and gas station.

Sag-Tuk Banks, 27, whose heritage is Kickapoo and Potowatomi Indian, is
preparing to return to Iraq this fall for his third tour, this time with
the Oklahoma National Guard.

The father of three was discharged from the Marine Corps in 2005 after four
years, but said that for the next year he struggled to support his family.

He kept driving past a nearby National Guard recruiting office, and one day
in 2006 he finally went in. When the recruiter told him he would get a
$20,000 bonus, he immediately reenlisted.

"I couldn't find a good-paying job," Banks said by phone from Ponca City,
Okla., where his unit was training to go to Iraq.

Banks's mother, Tina Wahwasuck, 44, helps run the Kickapoo trading post and
said she has deep misgivings about her son's upcoming tour.

"I am more scared than I was the first time," she said.

The mother of three was relieved, she said, when her younger son, 18,
recently failed the aptitude test to join the military. And she says her
16-year-old daughter talks about enlisting when she is old enough, but the
prospect of serving in Iraq has given her second thoughts.

Banks's grandmother, Donnis Keo, who has another grandson, Stryder Banks,
heading to Iraq this fall, said young people might not be so quick to
enlist if there were more opportunities.

"For them it's a way to get away from the reservation," she said.
"Everybody needs money."

As with many military families, there are also worries that the new class
of veterans will not get the support they need when they come back.
Wahwasuck said her son exhibits signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"He jokes all the time, but he hides it," she said. "A lot of people don't
see it the way I see it."

The nearest veterans' hospital to the Kickapoo reservation is more than an
hour away. What "helps him [cope] most," she said, are the ritual drum
services held here on the reservation.

Candace Wishkeno, meanwhile, wonders whether her daughter, Jessica, will
still want to be an elementary teacher when she returns from Iraq.

"After all she has been through I don't know that she'll want to do it.
She's gotten pretty tough."

She said the Army sent Jessica to "fat camp" to prepare her for basic
training.

"They must have wanted her pretty bad," said Wishkeno, adding, "She drives
trucks with grenades and ammunition. Why couldn't she be a nurse?"

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@....