Long before the famed Code Talkers, American Indians from today’s Arizona and New Mexico played important roles in the U.S. military. As early as the 1850s, some Navajos were paid for various temporary duties. It soon became evident to certain officers on the frontier that conventional tactics from the recently ended Civil War were insufficient when it came to the guerilla warfare the Army faced when fighting the Western tribes. The enlistment of Indians as scouts was one solution to this


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