This chapter shows how the contradictions and frustrations surrounding veterans came to a head with the onset of the “Indian New Deal” initiated by Franklin D. Roosevelt's Indian commissioner, John Collier. As Collier pushed his agenda of reform and return to communal landholding on Indian reservations, patriotism became the privileged weapon of an active minority of veterans spearheading resistance to the New Deal. Moreover, World War II proved a very favorable moment to realize a rhetorical and organizational connection that linked patriotism, the conservative defense of Indians' civic rights, and the rising tide of termination. At the end of the 1940s, the World War I generation reached the peak of its influence in Indian country and demonstrated the complexity of Indian patriotism. A new generation of Indian soldiers was soon to take their place. They would turn ceremonies popularized with World War I into a new, modern Indian tradition.