In 2001, Omar Benally was getting ready to graduate from St. Michael Indian School near Window Rock, Arizona, when he picked a fight with his parents.
“I don’t want anybody yelling at my son,” Benallys dad—a Green Beret— responded when he learned his son wanted to join the Marines.
The men talked through the disagreement and Benally explained that he already knew college wasn’t for him.
“I said I wanted to travel,” Benally remembered. “I gestured with my fingers and said, ‘I’ve seen this much of the world.’ I put my arms
