Vine Deloria, Jr., of Standing Rock Sioux origin, was born in Martin, South Dakota near the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation on March 26, 1933.   He was educated in grade school in Martin, and in high school at St. James Academy in Fairbault, Minnesota. He then served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1954 to 1956, graduated with a bachelor’s in science from Iowa State University in 1958, received a Master's degree in theology in 1963 from the Lutheran School of Theology in Illinois, and a law degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1970.