Family and friends paid tribute to Alejandro J. Yazzie, a member of the Navajo Nation, who was killed in Afghanistan on February 16. He was 23.

Yazzie grew up in Rock Point, Arizona, on the reservation. He wanted to join the U.S. Marines when he was six, his brother said.

"My little brother defended our Nation and our country with respect and love and loyalty," Ferlando Bitsui said at the funeral, The Farmington Daiy Times reported. "And he paid it with his life, but he did it for what he believed in."

Yazzie was the 11th Navajo tribal member to die in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

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