A Canadian Indian's Age-Old Call To U.S. Duty

Her son, Cpl. Michael T. Seeley, 27, was killed Oct. 30 by a roadside bomb outside Baghdad. He was on the last two days of his second tour of Iraq -- the first with U.S. Marines, the second with the U.S. Army. He lived in Canada, a country overwhelmingly opposed to the Iraq war. But he wore a U.S. military uniform, as do at least two dozen other native citizens of North America entitled to fight for either country. "It hearkens back to the warrior tradition that is part of the culture of many tribes," said John Moses, an assistant curator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization near Ottawa. "Culturally, it remains a significant rite of passage among North American Indians to perform some military service. "And if they are trying to get in the thick of things quicker, enlistment in the U.S. armed services is probably the way to go," said Moses, a First Nations, as natives are called in Canada, who served in the Canadian armed forces. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500702_pf.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on November 29, 2006]

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