Native Americans, the credits due, and some debits. Date is 1950's and earlier.
Yes the rest of us subsidized the reservations in the "Sovereign Nations".
They were subject to the draft just like all the rest of the healthy males of America. That was a high price to pay to have your roads paved and other benefits.
On a personal case, I crossed the Atlantic on the General Patch, KP all the way. The portion 4 of us had was fine, except we were on the lowest deck. Being a bit of a scoff law, and an explorer, I tested what would happen if we went to the foredeck, which was off limits. I marched my 3 man detail up to the bow, and later marched them back. I watched the time, and was never late for when we did our work. I was successful, even telling an officer from the bridge that we were supposed to be there for our breaks, so our 'boss' could find us easily, later the ranking MP found us, and defeated with the same story.
The Navajo in our group was in very bad spirits, from the rigidity of the basic and later training, then cooped up in the hold, no fresh air.
The foredeck had no oil fumes from the boilers, limitless views, beautiful clouds and pure blue sky. When I stood up to authority, and effectively drove them away, he concluded that I had powers like the medicine men of the tribe.
In Italy, he told all his room mates of his friend who took command of the bow of the ship, and held it in spite of attempts by higher ranking officers to send us back to the hold.
That time on the bow took him back to the desert in many respects, even though the sand was water, it was all clean and pure as it came to us.
We started at 5 in the morning, finished at 10 at night, but had a lot of free time through the day, and spent it all on the bow.
I had long talks with "Navajo", and came to appreciate what his tribe endured in the pre 1950 time period. His family was hard working, he went to white mans school off reservation, and at age 5, in the summer, herded the family sheep, solo. He was alone with 20 or 30 sheep and his dog for a week at a time, with a chunk of belly meat to slice for grease, and cornmeal to make mush or stone baked loaves. He moved the sheep from one area to another, and at each fresh area, restored the brush corral for the sheep at night, he and his dog slept at the entrance to guard against occasional wolves or cayotes. Beyond his clothes he had a heavy wool blanket with symbols woven into it to protect him.
All I ever called him was Navajo, as I could not pronounce his native name, and the Hispanic name given him in the school was offensive to him, but was on his uniform.
A lot of his tribe were drafted and died in the Korean war. We were in, 1956 to 58, between the wars.
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