Veterans encircle the Warrior/Veterans Wall of Remembrance at Eagle Circle during a victory song Wednesday. (LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian)

Artist Corky Clarimont was talking about eagles when he spoke of the strength of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, but he might just as well have been speaking of the veterans honored by the memorial he designed.

That memorial was unveiled yesterday at the tribes’ headquarters on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. As Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin writes, here, the Warrior/Veterans Wall of Remembrance at Eagle Circle is unique to the tribes:

Tepee poles 65 feet tall rise over the memorial, and serve to welcome Indian veterans both alive and dead back home to their reservation.

Inside the monument, the head of an eagle occupies the tallest piece of granite, and other pieces form the wings that circle around to protect those inside.

On those inside walls, the names of more than 1,200 Indians from the Flathead Reservation who have served their nation are carved into the stone.

During the nearly daylong ceremonies that marked the dedication, CSKT chairman E.T. “Bud” Moran noted that 44 members of the tribes volunteered to serve in World War I, even though Indians had not yet even been granted U.S. citizenship and were not required to serve.

Clicking on the link to the story will also lead you to a video, here.

Gwen Florio

Micah Highwalking is the first member of her Northern Cheyenne Tribe to graduate from the U.S. military academy at West Point.

Highwalking, 23, of Lame Deer, Mont, is one of only five Native American grads, Lorna Thackeray of the Billings (Mont.) Gazette points out in this very nice tribute to Highwalking’s accomplishments:

Micah Highwalking is the first Northern Cheyenne graduate from West Point military academy. (Courtesy photo)

“I still feel like me,” she said after climbing one of the nation’s highest academic mountains. “When we celebrate here, I’m just glad to see everybody.”

And she has been celebrated a lot since arriving home in a brief hiatus between graduation and the beginning of her career as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. She presented her full-dress jacket and “tar bucket” parade hat to the tribe for its warriors’ collection. Tribal musicians played an honor song, a flag song and the chief’s song.

“They are the highest honors of our tribe,” she said. “Then they gave me a satin star quilt.”

Her family and tribe hosted a dinner in her honor last week, and her family (was scheduled to) pay tribute with a giveaway Saturday at the tribe’s annual powwow. She has been spending her time at home encouraging others, including her younger siblings, to set their goals high, too.

Highwalking credits her mother, Cleone Highwalking, with setting the strict standards that served her well at West Point.

“I think my mom had a big part in everything I do,” Highwalking tells Thackeray. “She was a single mother some of the time I was growing up and she broke her back to get my brother and me what we needed.”

Gwen Florio

An automobile decorated to honor Clarence Wolf Guts drives into the Black Hills National Cemetery on Tuesday. (Ryan Soderlin/Rapid City Journal)

“I knew he was an important man to people because of his activities in the Army, but I didn’t know this many people had so much respect for him,” said Don Doyle, Wolf Guts’ only son. “I’m very proud of him, and I’m very grateful to them coming all the way here to pay respects to my father.”

Tyler Jerke of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal described yesterday’s ceremonies, a blend of traditional Lakota and military pomp, here:

The casket of Clarence Wolf Guts is carried into the Committal Shelter during services at the Black Hills National Cemetery on Tuesday, June 22, 2010. Wolf Guts was the last living Oglala Lakota code talker. (Ryan Soderlin/Rapid City Journal)

A line of American flags held by Patriot Guard Riders, volunteer veterans from North and South Dakota, waved above Wolf Guts’ casket as it entered the rotunda followed by his family. The sound of a bugle echoed throughout the cemetery as taps was played by a member of The Retired Enlisted Association of Rapid City.

Gov. Mike Rounds had asked that flags in the state be flown at half-staff Tuesday to honor Wolf Guts. Wolf Guts was one of 11 Lakota, Nakota and Dakota code talkers from South Dakota who aided the war effort by transmitting communications in their native language, which the Germans and the Japanese could not translate.

Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls first met Wolf Guts after the tribal council honored him for his contributions. She said the passing of Wolf Guts is sad but the nation has to remember what he represented and what he did for the country.

“It’s because of people like him that we get to live in peace, and people should remember that and honor them with respect,” said Theresa Two Bulls, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Both the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian reservations named this week Clarence Wolf Guts week.

A hawk flew overhead during the ceremonies.

“I was sad at first, but when I saw that the spirit came out. It was a very good sign,” Doyle told Jerke. “When we all saw that, we knew he was OK.”

Gwen Florio

Here’s a story you’ll want to read in full. It’s by Holly Meyer of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal:

Clarence Wolf Guts sits on the steps of his son's home in the town of Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Steve McEnroe/Rapid City Journal)

Wolf Guts was in his late 70s at the time, so his son, Don Doyle, did not make the call, but said the request personified his father’s love of country.

“He still wanted to help. He was trying to still be patriotic,” Doyle said.

Wolf Guts, 86, the last surviving Oglala Lakota code talker, died Wednesday afternoon at the South Dakota State Veterans Home in Hot Springs.

A Native American code talker from World War II, Wolf Guts helped defeat Axis forces by transmitting strategic military messages in his native language, which the Japanese and Germans couldn’t translate.

“He’s the last surviving code talker from the whole (Lakota) nation. It’s going to be a little like the passing of an era,” Doyle said.

The 450 Navajo code talkers were the most famous group of Native American soldiers to radio messages from the battlefields, but 15 other tribes used their languages to aid the Allied efforts in World War II.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s the name of a book by photojournalist Steven Clevenger, who in 2006 began documenting the warrior tradition of Native soldiers serving in Iraq.

A National Public Radio report, here, has a slideshow of his work.

Clevenger, who is Osage, writes that “A warrior is the protector of his people.” As NPR’s Sarah Handel writes, the qualities that make a great warrior – loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage – also are key to a successful career in the U.S. military:

Clevenger spent time embedded with Native American military members in Iraq in both 2007 and 2009. He took photographs and interviewed Apache, Navajo, Osage, Pueblo and other Native military members, capturing how their culture affected and informed their wartime service.

He also attended traditional ceremonies in the U.S., such as the War Mothers’ Dance and the Welcoming Home/Cleansing Ceremony. He spoke with the soldiers’ families about the Native traditions meant to protect, honor and provide solace to the warriors.

Gwen Florio

Arthur Jewett’s family has waited a long time to properly bury the Cheyenne River Sioux soldier who was killed during the Korean War, but whose remains were only recently returned. (See previous post, here.) Today, the Associated Press has this update. Here’s the story in its entirety:

Arthur Jewett

Jewett, an Army sergeant from White Horse, was killed during the Korean War in 1950 but was listed as missing in action until his remains were recovered in 2002 from a mass grave in North Korea. The remains were returned to South Dakota last September and buried.

“It’s great when everything turned out real nice. I mean, (we) brought him home, buried him right alongside his brother, twin brother,” said Louie Jewett, another brother.

Jewett said that in past years when family members gathered around Memorial Day to decorate graves, Arthur’s decoration always went around a memorial plaque beneath a flag pole.

He said when it comes time to decorate the stone that now sits above his brother’s grave, he expects there to be some mixed emotions.

“I’m glad that everything turned out the way it did and my family is glad,” he said. “Yet at the same time, it’s going to be sad, but that’s the way it goes.”

Josh Wilson stands outside the Kinlani Dorm that he calls home while attending Flagstaff High School. After he graduates from high school this week Wilson is headed for boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. (Jake Bacon/Arizona Daily Sun)

We’ve been featuring every graduation story we can these past couple of weeks because the stories generally offer such hopeful fare. Here’s another, this one from Hilllary Davis of the Daily Sun in Flagstaff, Ariz.

When Josh Wilson dons the iconic dress uniform of the U.S. Marine Corps, he’ll show he’s part of something bigger than himself – and in a way, wear his heart on his sleeve.

“Every Marine is proud of what he does,” Josh said.

The Flagstaff High senior is headed for boot camp on June 21 and won’t call himself a Marine until he’s finished that training. But the pride already shows when he talks about his preparation and excitement.

Josh admired friends’ and his grandfather’s service in the Marine Corps, and by his sophomore year he knew that’s what he wanted, too. He signed up last summer, right after he turned 17, with his mother’s permission, and he has spent the last year as a “pullee” in the delayed entry program.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recession? Not in Albuquerque, where Gathering of Nations pumps millions into economy
As many as 200,000 people were expected to have attended the Gathering of Nations that ended last night in Albuquerque. TV station KOB reports here that the event, which bills itself as the world’s largest powwow, will bring in $22 million to $35 million for the local economy.

Early Inuit art commands very high prices
Inuit art from the 1950s and 1960s brings impressive prices, as Jane George of the Nunatsiaq News, who attended a recent auction of Inuit art in Toronto, writes here. A carving called “Hooded figure,” by the late John Pangnark of Arviat, went for $14,000, and a 1959 Cape Dorset print, “Polar bear and cub in ice,” by Niviaxie, who died that same year, sold for $22,800.

Art by Native inmates finds market on the outside
And speaking of art, Native inmates inside the Mike Durfee Prison in South Dakota are creating artwork that could help support them on the outside. State corrections spokesman Michael Winder says art is encouraged in the prison. And Laurie Apple tells the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, here, that she buys art from Native inmates for her art store and gallery, Osage Lakota Artworks, in Kimball.

Two novels draw inspiration from Northwest Coast tribes
Today, Bellingham (Wash.) Herald book reviewer Barbara Lloyd McMichael takes a look, here, at two novels that focus on Northwest Coast Native American culture – John Pappas’ “When Wolf Comes,” that McMichael terms an historical novel that reads like a captivity narrative. The second is a book recently brought back into print: “Raven Stole the Moon.” It’s the first novel by Garth Stein, who went on to write the bestseller, “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”

Gathering heralds First Nations, Metis and Inuit learners
A recent gathering hosted by the Edmonton Public Schools’ Board of Trustees was the first such event for First Nations Chiefs and other leaders from First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities from across three territories, the Edmonton Journal reports here. The idea was to build on the work of the board’s Aboriginal Education Task Force.

Dine soldiers home with their families after 10-month tour in Iraq
We love stories about soldiers coming home safe. Here’s one from the Navajo Times, about the 300 soldiers of the New Mexico National Guard who returned after a 10-month tour in Iraq. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was on hand to welcome members of the 1115th and the 720th companies. “I’m very proud of our National Guard, particularly with the Navajos who are serving,” Richardson told them.

Gwen Florio

Columnist Tim Giago specifically applies this lament about the Veterans Administration to Native American veterans in his column, here:

For too many Indian veterans it strikes close to the bone. They are so entangled in bureaucratic red tape they are all but suffocating. Many have been reduced to living lives well below the poverty level set by the very government they fought for and nearly died defending.

Giago goes on to describe the cases of individual Native veterans living in Rapid cCity, S.D., who appear to have fallen between the cracks of VA care. One Oglala Lakota man, Andres Torres, got a call from South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds after Giago wrote about him earlier.

Torres tells him that “I am so proud to have served my country in the regular United States Army and in the South Dakota National Guard and no one can take that away from me, but sometimes I am so ashamed of the Veteran’s Administration for what they have done to me and to thousands of my fellow veterans.”

Gwen Florio