What is the main message of Chief Laforme's poem 'I Love this Land'?

Fighting for a country that was stripped from your very hands, and dying for a country that had taken your culture and buried it into the ground: would you do it? In Chief LaForme’s I Love This Land, it is communicated to the reader just how discriminatory life was for a returning Indigenous soldier from the war. The message portrayed in this poem is nothing short of meaningful: no matter how patriotic, brave, and similar an Indigenous soldier might be fighting alongside English soldiers, he would never be viewed as equal or anywhere near as brave as them when returning home. “Mixed in the field’s one could not be distinguished from the other” (LaForme, I Love this Land). This quotation allows for us to make the assumption that on the battlefield, whilst actively fighting the war, Indigenous soldiers were seen as equal to their English counterparts: this essentially alludes to the idea that they did the same amount of work; were equally brave; and were equally considered to be brothers with the other soldiers. Why would they face discrimination when returning home if they were unrecognizably similar to the English soldiers whilst in the war; if they did the same work, why should they be treated differently? “Oh, we still stood shoulder to shoulder in the parades, but the government thought that your life was more valuable than mine” (LaForme, I Love this Land). This quotation allows for the reader to understand the severity of discrimination endured by these Indigenous soldiers, as it is shown that although he fought for his country, it still was not enough to be treated equally to the English soldiers. Use of idiom is used in this quote, and this can be seen when the Indigenous and English soldiers were described to stand “shoulder to shoulder” (LaForme, I Love this Land) with each other. They may not have been physically touching shoulders, but this idiom signifies the relationship between the soldiers: brotherly, and equal. Use of the word “Oh” in this quotation gives the readers the idea that these soldiers were utterly saddened by the fact that they still were underappreciated, and felt almost betrayed by the discrimination faced, as if they hadn’t already been betrayed by their land being stolen in the beginning. Working so tirelessly to fight for a country that was stolen from them, and returning home to find your hard work underappreciated and ignored because of your heritage would be saddening to anybody. Enjambment was used within the second stanza of the poem to signify the bitterness endured by the Indigenous soldiers: there was almost so much ill intent hidden underneath ignorance towards these soldiers, that the examples of discrimination had to continue, and could not be put to a stop. “But the government thought that your life was more valuable than mine so you were given land property” (LaForme, I Love this Land). Use of a period would have been added between the words “mine” and “so” however, to show the flowing emotions of confusion and sadness regarding why English soldiers got land and the Indigenous did not, having two lines continue into each other allowed for the reader to feel a sense of discriminatory overload similar to what the soldiers experienced. Because Indigenous rights were something of faint thought opposed to the modern outlook on Indigenous rights that we see now, most would return home without anybody standing up for them or what they deserved: they would go without land, as seen through multiple quotations provided, and they would also go through a lifetime of discrimination despite having fought equally alongside the English soldiers. They were never treated equally, no matter how hard they fought.