Navajo corporal becomes first sailor authorized to wear traditional native hair

Cpl. Bradford Flores is honoring his culture by growing his hair — and the Marine Corps has authorized it.

Flores, a Native American service member and anti-tank missile gunner, is the first Marine in the corps to receive a religious exemption allowing him to grow his hair long in keeping with his Navajo heritage, the service confirmed to Military.com on Tuesday.

The authorization, which was issued late last month, marks a critical milestone in a long push to allow service members to observe religious practices while in uniform. The exemption is particularly notable because the Marine Corps is known among the military branches for having the strictest adherence to uniformity and a reluctance to allow exceptions to it.

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For Flores, the drive for his clearance is not driven by individualism, he told Military.com in a recent interview, but by a desire to honor his Navajo heritage while in the Corps — and to help others Native American Marines. descent does the same.

“I know this one is bigger than me,” Flores said. “This is for other people in my community.”

When he joined the Navy Reserve in 2021, Flores was unable to wear his hair in the traditional Navajo or Diné style., what the tribe was originally called. In his heritage, long hair exemplifies strength and communal identity, Flores said, and is essential.

“In our culture, you only get a haircut if there’s a major life change or someone in the family passes,” he said. “Even when you cut your hair, you have to do it very ceremoniously… like an offering. You’re giving yourself up.”

A native of Oklahoma, Flores comes from a long line of military service members and Navajo heritage. His father served in the Air Force for more than two decades, and his great-grandfather, a Navajo man, served in World War II, Flores said.

Part of his drive to apply for the accommodation was not only to set an example for other Indigenous men who want to join — or already in — the Corps, but to honor the generations of his ancestors who served but couldn’t to observe their heritage as they did so.

“We Navajo people have not been treated the best,” Flores said, referring to generations of racism and oppression by the U.S. government and non-indigenous groups. “But we make do with what we have and always have been since the first natives were around.”

As part of the religious accommodation process, Flores sent a letter to the Marine Corps from his church pastor, the Rev. Dr. Justine Wilson.

“The cutting of Native men’s hair is a painful legacy of the practices of Native boarding schools, which attempted to erase all traces of Native traditions from Native youth, down to the banning of Native languages ​​and forced hair cutting,” she wrote.

Wilson said the effects of this forced assimilation and erasure led to “astronomical” rates of alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide within Native communities. And the forcible cutting of hair disconnects indigenous men from the land and God.

“For decades, Native men have had to choose between their Native religion and service in the armed forces,” she wrote. “I hope we are at a point where Native men will no longer be singled out for restrictions on practicing traditional Native beliefs and will still be able to serve with distinction in the defense of this country.”

Native Americans have served in the U.S. military for two centuries and, more recently, five times the national average, according to the USO. Specifically, Navajo men have a long and rich history of serving in the Marine Corps, but even so, they haven’t been allowed to practice their heritage, Flores said.

During World War II, nearly 200 Navajo code talkers joined the Marine Corps and the annals of military legends when they transmitted radio communications using their unique language to obfuscate messages on the battlefield. According to the Marine Corps, those messages were “undoubtedly” intercepted but never deciphered by the Axis powers.

Now, Flores can serve his country and observe the critical tenets of his heritage. And to him, many of those tenets in Navajo culture and the Marine Corps aren’t at odds — they’re complementary.

“Especially with the warrior ethos of the Marine Corps, a lot of that falls into the native culture, no matter what tribe it is,” he said. “We’re natural warriors… That’s why in our communities, anybody who joins the military — they’re very, very respected.”

Before leaving for boot camp, Flores was honored by tribal leaders at a powwow to join the military, a sign for him of communal support. The support also extended to his Marine Corps community, he said. With guidance from management and his chaplain, Flores began the process of applying for a religious exemption in 2023.

He said he spoke with one of his sergeants, who is also Native American, who gave him the confidence to apply. He recalled that sergeant saying, “If you decide to do this, we’ll be here supporting you all the way.”

A year later, in the middle of a training exercise in Arkansas, Flores was told by his first sergeant that he had been granted accommodation. Part of the exemption means he has to adhere to women’s hair standards, which means he has to keep it in a bun or braid if he’s on court.

“It was awesome,” Flores said. “The first thing I did was take a screenshot of the religious abode and sent it to my father, mother and fiancee. Everyone was ecstatic.”

Flores is not alone in his efforts. Other services, such as the Army, also made exemptions for indigenous service members. And Flores was inspired by Senior Airman Connor Crawn, who received a religious exemption to wear his hair to honor his Kanien’kehà:ka, or Mohawk, tradition in 2022. Crawn is part of the Indigenous Nations Equality Team, or INET — an Air Force-based initiative that provides advocacy and outreach for Native American service members.

“Any kind of positive representation or awareness we can get about our indigenous service members is always going to be a win,” Crawn told Military.com via email Thursday about the news of the accommodation. to Flores. “Whether one has something good to say or something bad to say about our Native men being able to grow their hair in uniform, the discussion it creates alone brings awareness that we as Natives are still here practicing our ways.”

Flores said he expects criticism and has already received some since announcing he was the first indigenous man in the service to receive the accommodation. In large part, he said, the criticism was outweighed by the support he received from his Navajo families and the Marine Corps.

“Obviously, there’s going to be people who are going to have their criticisms and they’re going to have their thoughts and opinions about it. But I don’t care about the negative stuff,” Flores said. “For me, my people or really anyone who is interested in learning about it – it’s an opportunity for people who don’t understand to learn or for people who do understand it and want to be able to do it, who are indigenous … and go further away with their process.”

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