Begay is a Navajo man who is small in stature, high-spirited, smart, and curious. He narrates the book and begins by looking back to when he was an anxious six-year-old waiting to discover whether he would be sent away from his family to boarding school. His narrative concludes in his adulthood, when he’s a World War Two veteran, a teacher of Navajo language and culture, and an active member of the Navajo community.

Ned is an obedient but inquisitive child, respectful of his elders while maintaining his curiosity and interest in the world. He excels in school and appears to adhere to the mission school’s policy against speaking Navajo, but he secretly maintains using his native language, which provides comfort in the strange place. During school, and then as a Marine in World War Two, he maintains the Navajo rituals that are so important to him.

In school and while serving in the military, Ned is compassionate not only to his fellow American troops but also to the foreign civilians and indigenous peoples he encounters in the Pacific islands. He relates the experience of Navajo oppression by white settlers to the experience of other oppressed peoples in the world, including the Japanese.