thedrifter
07-21-03, 09:38 AM
Celebrating Their Service to U.S.
By Andrew Metz
Staff Correspondent
Salamanca, N.Y. -- One in an occasional series on American Indians in the 21st Century
The words were issued like awards: World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. With each evocation of an American war, Indian soldiers proudly fell into formation at the center of a circle of thousands.
They wore eagle feathers and insignia of their service: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. They clutched canes and rifles, ceremonial staffs and, at times, each other, as their people honored them with the songs and dances bestowed on native warriors.
"Let them see how I can be. Even though the Europeans that invaded our shores wanted to do away with the Indian, and they are still persisting, I am still standing," said Clayton Logan, a Vietnam veteran from the Seneca tribe, who yesterday, eagle staff in hand, led the processional of fellow soldiers into a huge pow-wow here on the Allegheny Indian Reservation.
American Indians, mostly of the Iroquois tribes, are converging on this remote reservation town at the fringe of western New York to celebrate their warriors and affirm one of the most intriguing phenomena of their culture. Despite centuries of oppression, America's first people have consistently fought for a country that once sought to obliterate them.
From the colonial inception of U.S. militias to the recent invasion of Iraq, Indians have served and died as infantrymen and decorated officers, even before they were afforded the rights and privileges of citizens.
They have joined the armed services in greater numbers per capita than any other ethnic group, yet have long languished on the periphery. Today, however, as Indians across the country are defying the epitaph of extinction ascribed to them, this significant role in the military -- and its prominent place in native culture -- is emerging from the historical shadows.
Whether through the recent popularization of the Navajos who used undecipherable codes in World War II, or the death of Pvt. Lori Piestewa, the first woman and Indian killed in the latest Iraq war, Indian warriors are asserting their presence as integral players in this country's unfolding history, and their own.
"Our Native American veterans have not been honored in the right way," said Jack Johnson, a Mohawk, who served in the Navy during the Korean War era and 11 years ago founded the North American Iroquois Veterans Association, which runs the event at a grassy park here. "Look how long it took for the Codetalkers to be honored, since World War II."
The weekend-long veterans' pow-wow has burgeoned into one of the largest such gatherings anywhere, Johnson said, complete with foods and crafts, major dance and drumming competitions. The centerpieces, though, are the military men and women, who come in everything from traditional dress to combat gear and hail from the modern conflicts and the peacetimes.
It is unclear exactly how many Indian veterans and active duty personnel there are, mainly because of the growing number of people identifying themselves with native ancestry. Indian scholars and veterans officials estimate that at least 11 percent of the population today have served, with the ratio tens of times higher on many reservations and during conflicts of the past century. The rate can be as high as 8 in 10 Indian males, said Charles Nesby, director of the federal Center for Minority Veterans.
All over Indian country, generation after generation has passed through the military, mostly as volunteers, re-emerging from the experience to a native culture that embraces their sacrifice and counts on their continued service.
"Some of the ceremonies and the songs and the stories could not be kept alive unless there were veterans, unless there were warriors," said Tom Holm, a professor at the University of Arizona and a Cherokee/Creek Indian who fought as a Marine in Vietnam.
"It is not a glorification of war," said Holm, the author of the book "Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native America Veterans of the Vietnam War." "It is this recurrence of ceremony and identity that is important. You are in it not because you so much want to serve the United States. You are serving your own culture."
The harsh realities of reservation life have also made the military a popular escape route, propelling this complicated tradition forward, in a way, requiring Indians to claim a dual citizenship, Indian and American.
"I have allegiance to both," said Chuck Nephew, a Seneca Vietnam vet, who commands the Iroquois outpost of the American Legion on a reservation north of here. Like most of his male relatives, Nephew volunteered for duty, a path he said was inevitable.
"It is just the way we were brought up and what we believe," he said, as he and fellow veterans laced-up combat boots and donned tunics with colorful ribbons for each branch of the service.
Indeed, as long as there have been colonizers on this continent, Indians have sent their soldiers to war, often as allies to the colonizers, honoring peace treaties. There were Indian generals in both the Union and Confederate armies. Some tribes even declared war on U.S. enemies, including the Oglala Sioux and Iroquois on Nazi Germany, according to Indian scholars.
And the robust military tradition extends to Indian women, too.
Piestewa's mother, Percy, said in a telephone interview that if any good has come of her daughter's death, it is a budding appreciation for Indian military service. "It is the one thing that I am glad about," she said. "Native Americans are generally put down and stereotyped, but with the passing of Lori, Native Americans are being recognized in a positive way."
At the Iroquois ceremony yesterday, there was special attention paid to Col. Angela O'Rourke, a Mohawk military intelligence officer for more than 20 years before she was involved in a car accident that left her blind.
"All these lands were our peoples," she said yesterday, holding the lead of her guide dog. "Whether it's right or wrong, who has it now, that can't be changed and it doesn't mean that we cannot honor the land even if that means our people have to go to the service and die."
For all the patriotic spirit, though, fighting America's wars has left its psychic scars on Indians, particularly those who served in Vietnam.
"This time they were the Cavalry and it was kind of like what the Cavalry did to us and they had to reconcile that when they were there and when they came back," said Harold Barse, a Kioiwa who counsels vets in Oklahoma, home to one of the largest Indian populations in the country.
And there are still some Indians who simply cannot reconcile or write off to irony this yanking of allegiances.
"We have been a target population for almost 200 years and the effort has been to transform us into good hardworking American taxpayers... " said Robert Odawi Porter, the director of the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship at Syracuse University's law school.
"Parading the American flag to the tune of traditional Indian music and dance typifies the internal conflict and the dysfunction and perhaps the harmony and beauty of American indigenous life today," said Porter, the Senecas' former Attorney General. "… You will find people who think that it is an amazing blend of culture and then there are those like me who view it as a tragedy."
On the grounds of this reservation yesterday, however, any bitter tension was set aside, at least for the moment, while another history was being written.
"We are warriors from way back. We are buried in Gettysburg and all over," said George Heron, a World War II Navy vet and a former president of the Seneca Nation. "You've heard the saying, 'if you don't like it, go back to where you came from.' Well, we can't do that. This is where we are from."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-stind0720,0,796765.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
By Andrew Metz
Staff Correspondent
Salamanca, N.Y. -- One in an occasional series on American Indians in the 21st Century
The words were issued like awards: World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. With each evocation of an American war, Indian soldiers proudly fell into formation at the center of a circle of thousands.
They wore eagle feathers and insignia of their service: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. They clutched canes and rifles, ceremonial staffs and, at times, each other, as their people honored them with the songs and dances bestowed on native warriors.
"Let them see how I can be. Even though the Europeans that invaded our shores wanted to do away with the Indian, and they are still persisting, I am still standing," said Clayton Logan, a Vietnam veteran from the Seneca tribe, who yesterday, eagle staff in hand, led the processional of fellow soldiers into a huge pow-wow here on the Allegheny Indian Reservation.
American Indians, mostly of the Iroquois tribes, are converging on this remote reservation town at the fringe of western New York to celebrate their warriors and affirm one of the most intriguing phenomena of their culture. Despite centuries of oppression, America's first people have consistently fought for a country that once sought to obliterate them.
From the colonial inception of U.S. militias to the recent invasion of Iraq, Indians have served and died as infantrymen and decorated officers, even before they were afforded the rights and privileges of citizens.
They have joined the armed services in greater numbers per capita than any other ethnic group, yet have long languished on the periphery. Today, however, as Indians across the country are defying the epitaph of extinction ascribed to them, this significant role in the military -- and its prominent place in native culture -- is emerging from the historical shadows.
Whether through the recent popularization of the Navajos who used undecipherable codes in World War II, or the death of Pvt. Lori Piestewa, the first woman and Indian killed in the latest Iraq war, Indian warriors are asserting their presence as integral players in this country's unfolding history, and their own.
"Our Native American veterans have not been honored in the right way," said Jack Johnson, a Mohawk, who served in the Navy during the Korean War era and 11 years ago founded the North American Iroquois Veterans Association, which runs the event at a grassy park here. "Look how long it took for the Codetalkers to be honored, since World War II."
The weekend-long veterans' pow-wow has burgeoned into one of the largest such gatherings anywhere, Johnson said, complete with foods and crafts, major dance and drumming competitions. The centerpieces, though, are the military men and women, who come in everything from traditional dress to combat gear and hail from the modern conflicts and the peacetimes.
It is unclear exactly how many Indian veterans and active duty personnel there are, mainly because of the growing number of people identifying themselves with native ancestry. Indian scholars and veterans officials estimate that at least 11 percent of the population today have served, with the ratio tens of times higher on many reservations and during conflicts of the past century. The rate can be as high as 8 in 10 Indian males, said Charles Nesby, director of the federal Center for Minority Veterans.
All over Indian country, generation after generation has passed through the military, mostly as volunteers, re-emerging from the experience to a native culture that embraces their sacrifice and counts on their continued service.
"Some of the ceremonies and the songs and the stories could not be kept alive unless there were veterans, unless there were warriors," said Tom Holm, a professor at the University of Arizona and a Cherokee/Creek Indian who fought as a Marine in Vietnam.
"It is not a glorification of war," said Holm, the author of the book "Strong Hearts, Wounded Souls: Native America Veterans of the Vietnam War." "It is this recurrence of ceremony and identity that is important. You are in it not because you so much want to serve the United States. You are serving your own culture."
The harsh realities of reservation life have also made the military a popular escape route, propelling this complicated tradition forward, in a way, requiring Indians to claim a dual citizenship, Indian and American.
"I have allegiance to both," said Chuck Nephew, a Seneca Vietnam vet, who commands the Iroquois outpost of the American Legion on a reservation north of here. Like most of his male relatives, Nephew volunteered for duty, a path he said was inevitable.
"It is just the way we were brought up and what we believe," he said, as he and fellow veterans laced-up combat boots and donned tunics with colorful ribbons for each branch of the service.
Indeed, as long as there have been colonizers on this continent, Indians have sent their soldiers to war, often as allies to the colonizers, honoring peace treaties. There were Indian generals in both the Union and Confederate armies. Some tribes even declared war on U.S. enemies, including the Oglala Sioux and Iroquois on Nazi Germany, according to Indian scholars.
And the robust military tradition extends to Indian women, too.
Piestewa's mother, Percy, said in a telephone interview that if any good has come of her daughter's death, it is a budding appreciation for Indian military service. "It is the one thing that I am glad about," she said. "Native Americans are generally put down and stereotyped, but with the passing of Lori, Native Americans are being recognized in a positive way."
At the Iroquois ceremony yesterday, there was special attention paid to Col. Angela O'Rourke, a Mohawk military intelligence officer for more than 20 years before she was involved in a car accident that left her blind.
"All these lands were our peoples," she said yesterday, holding the lead of her guide dog. "Whether it's right or wrong, who has it now, that can't be changed and it doesn't mean that we cannot honor the land even if that means our people have to go to the service and die."
For all the patriotic spirit, though, fighting America's wars has left its psychic scars on Indians, particularly those who served in Vietnam.
"This time they were the Cavalry and it was kind of like what the Cavalry did to us and they had to reconcile that when they were there and when they came back," said Harold Barse, a Kioiwa who counsels vets in Oklahoma, home to one of the largest Indian populations in the country.
And there are still some Indians who simply cannot reconcile or write off to irony this yanking of allegiances.
"We have been a target population for almost 200 years and the effort has been to transform us into good hardworking American taxpayers... " said Robert Odawi Porter, the director of the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship at Syracuse University's law school.
"Parading the American flag to the tune of traditional Indian music and dance typifies the internal conflict and the dysfunction and perhaps the harmony and beauty of American indigenous life today," said Porter, the Senecas' former Attorney General. "… You will find people who think that it is an amazing blend of culture and then there are those like me who view it as a tragedy."
On the grounds of this reservation yesterday, however, any bitter tension was set aside, at least for the moment, while another history was being written.
"We are warriors from way back. We are buried in Gettysburg and all over," said George Heron, a World War II Navy vet and a former president of the Seneca Nation. "You've heard the saying, 'if you don't like it, go back to where you came from.' Well, we can't do that. This is where we are from."
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-stind0720,0,796765.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: