Date

2-13-2026

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Chair

Jared Tracy

Keywords

Kiowa Tribe, Native American Military Service, Indigenous Warrior Traditions, World War I, World War II, Ethnohistory, U.S. Army, Military Service, and identity.

Disciplines

History

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Kiowa Tribe's military participation in World War I and World War II, arguing that these global conflicts served as both transformative and restorative forces within the Kiowa community. Drawing upon archival records, oral histories, military files, and tribal sources, the study analyzes how Kiowa men and women engaged with military service while simultaneously preserving and adapting traditional notions of warriorhood, communal duty, and cultural identity.

Chronologically organized, the dissertation begins with a historical background of the Kiowa Tribe's socio-political and cultural context before World War I; proceeds to factors leading to military service, war experiences, discrimination, and stateside support during both periods of war; and concludes with the post-war landscape encompassing readjustment and memorialization. Particular attention is given to the roles of Kiowa women in auxiliary service, ceremonial life, and veteran support organizations. The study also examines the long-term effects of federal policy, boarding school trauma, and the GI Bill on the tribe’s development during the interwar and postwar periods. This research argues that military service enabled the Kiowa to assert cultural resilience, reclaim traditional warrior values, and establish a modern collective identity amid the pressures of assimilation and federal control. By engaging both documentary sources and oral tradition, this work contributes to Native American and military historiography by centering the voices and experiences of Kiowa veterans and their families. It demonstrates that the Kiowa experience of war was not merely a chapter in American military history, but a critical episode in the tribe’s ongoing story of survival, adaptation, and sovereignty.

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