America's Native Americans are over-represented in military and post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have hit the Navajo hard

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

The last time Virginia Jim spoke to her son Lyle Cambridge was in 2005 on 4 July, America's birthday. "I'm just calling to tell you how much I love you," he said, speaking from outside Baghdad where he was on his second tour to Iraq.

"I love you too," she said. "Just be real careful, take care of yourself."

"OK, goodbye," her son said when the time came to hang up.

"Don't say goodbye, that's a word I don't like to use."

"OK Mom, I'll talk to you later."

The next day at about 5pm, a white Jeep pulled up in front of her house amid the beige-coloured desert of New Mexico.

"The first thing that came to my mind," Jim says, "was that my son was sick. But they had come to tell me that he had been killed in action. I didn't know how to react. I started crying: 'Not my baby! That's my only baby!' "

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, America is bowing its head in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 victims. But adjust the lens for a wider view and a vastly greater mass of sacrifice and suffering can be seen, the direct result of 9/11 and the US response to it.

The country has been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for almost 10 years, with a concomitant toll of death and injuries.

Between them the two wars have claimed the lives of 6,026 US service members. Many of the bereaved relatives, like Jim, come from small towns across the American heartlands where the burden of war falls disproportionately.

Many, also like her, are from ethnic groups that carry a military load that exceeds their demographic weight.

She is a Native American, whose members form a portion of the US active duty forces (1.7%) that is twice as large as their proportion of the US population (0.8%).

Jim lives in Shiprock, a town in the Navajo reservation of about 8,000 people, almost exclusively Native Americans.

Three soldiers from Shiprock have died in the wars. If you add in casualties from the nearby village of Fruitland (200 residents) and the town of Farmington (45,000), the number of dead rises to seven, six of whom were Navajo.

Jim has watched the rising death toll with horror. "I don't know how to explain this," Jim says. "One after the other. You feel their pain, you know how they feel when they lose their child." At times, Jim says, she has been furious with the US military and its leaders for taking her son's life. But she quickly reminds herself of what her son always used to tell her. "They are the ones who sign my cheque Mom, they are the ones who help me support my family."

That view of the military is prevalent on the reservation, where alternative work is in short supply.

"It will help me get to college and help my future," says a 17-year-old girl after an enlistment interview in Farmington. Her 20-year-old boyfriend is also signing up

Sergeant Brandon Bowden, the recruiting officer in Farmington, has no illusions about why Native Americans are keen to join. "Many want the college benefits, others are out for some skill set they could use, as the economy is very bad in this small area. Quite a few are looking for jobs, with the unemployment rate so high."

As the wars have progressed, and more and more young people from the Shiprock area have enlisted, those left behind have had to develop coping methods.

Every week Jim attends meetings of Blue Star Mothers – women with sons or daughters in the military – in Farmington.

"We don't either support the war or want to ban the war, that's not what it's about," says Judye Sinclair-Liczel. "We're here for each other."

How would she describe the burden of the past 10 years for families like hers?

"You wake up each morning and wonder where your child is, is he OK, is he in danger or not in danger. You worry, you rip your hair out, and you cry. It doesn't get easier. Between my two boys there have been 12 deployments in 10 years, and they don't get easier. They do not."

At a meeting Melissa Sharpe, who has a son in Afghanistan, starts to talk about him. As she does so her voice cracks and tears roll down her cheeks.

"The first time he came back someone said you can breathe again, and I said that's exactly what it's like. It's just a burden, on me, and it's heavy, and I'm worried all the time. It's a pall on you constantly, and when they come back it just lifts."

Virginia Jim's son is never coming back. Now she says she lives for his two children, her grandchildren Wyatt and Nick.

"They started to come around and I started, I guess, to look at life a little differently. It kind of changed me. I thought, why am I so depressed when there are two children here who need me?"

Local victims



• Sergeant Lee Todacheene, 29, from Lukachukai Thought to be first Native American killed in Iraq. Hit by mortar fire at guard post in Balad, Iraq, on 6 April 2004.

• Corporal Lyle Cambridge, 23, from Shiprock A Navajo, Cambridge was killed by improvised explosive device near Baghdad on 5 July 2005.

• Sergeant Clifton Yazzie, 23, from Fruitland, near Shiprock Came from Native American family with a strong military tradition. Killed by a bomb on patrol in Huwija, Iraq, on 20 January 2006.

• Sergeant Marshall Westbrook, 43, from Farmington A Navajo, Westbrook was killed when his Humvee hit an IED near Baghdad on 1 October 2005. His younger brother, Kenneth, would die in Afghanistan four years later.

• Staff Sergeant Kevin Roberts, 25, from Farmington Killed by an IED while patrolling in a Humvee in Sabari, Afghanistan, on 7 May 2008.

• Sergeant Troy Tom, 21, from Shiprock Died in Arghandab, Afghanistan, after stepping on improvised bomb on 17 August 2009. His father is a member of the Navajo Nation Council.

• Sergeant Kenneth Westbrook, 41, from Shiprock Died on 7 November 2009 in hospital in Washington from injuries sustained three months earlier in an ambush in Ganjgal valley, Afghanistan. He was a month away from retirement after 22 years in the army.