Historian

Indian Soldiers Meet Before Veterans Day
Discuss Iraq, healthcare, Native participation in the Armed Forces.
by Sam Lewin
Native American Times - 4 Nov 2005

TULSA, OK -- Just over two days before Veterans Day and those who served in our country’s wars attend a National Congress of American Indians veterans subcommittee meeting.

Everyone shows up on time. Maybe it’s the remnant of military training, or maybe it’s because too many of them do not have much time left.

“A lot of issues that are important to Indian veterans also apply to all vets,” Jan Reibach, an tribal councilor with the Confederated tribes of the Grand Ronde community of Oregon and a Navy veteran, tells the Native American Times. “It’s about health issues and insurance. Insurance is too high.”

Reibach says there should be more healthcare available to homeless vets.

“It’s really bothersome to a lot of people that veterans become homeless and invisible,” he said. “It’s all related to stress and suffering from medical and spiritual problems. Some of them get so angry and they have tears coming from their eyes when you talk to them.”

Inside the meeting, James Locklear, a member of the Lumbee Tribe, is saying that diabetes is “killing him.” He tells a Veterans Affairs representative that he filed a claim in 1971, two years after returning from Vietnam. He says he still can’t get the benefits that come with being declared 100-percent disabled.

The VA guy promises to look into the case.

Ricardo Leonard of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community says he knows too many fellow vets that refuse to apply for services. Leonard thinks it’s an Indian thing.

“There is a lot of pride and also they don’t want to bother people. There should be a program to encourage these people to sign up because even if they are hurting really badly they won’t call,” Leonard said.

He believes that some older Native American veterans also feel guilty about taking resources away from younger soldiers just returning from Iraq.

Iraq. It’s on everyone’s mind. One man says the feeling among his fellow Vietnam vets is hope that today’s soldiers have access to “the things we didn’t get.” Reibach, the man worried about homeless veterans, predicts the problem is about to get worse.

“The new soldiers coming back home are dealing with a whole [different] level,” he says. “There used to be things like the DMZ, where you knew it was safe. Now they are in danger 24-hours a day.”

Marshall Tall Eagle says he has created a “Warriors Medal of Honor.”

“We want to find a way to restore honor to our veterans,” he says. “It’s our goal to get these medals to every Indian that served.”

Tall Eagle gives a reporter his e-mail address so that eligible folks can contact him about getting the medal. The address is: marshalltalleagle@yahoo.com

The topics discussed inside the meeting are serious and grim-the VA rep. reminds Vietnam vets to get a new type of blood screen that can detect traces of Agent Orange- but the men are still able to rattle off one-liners and cheerfully use salty language. Every one of them is aware-and most seem to be very proud- of the fact that per capita, Native Americans serve at a higher rate than any other ethnic group.

“If it wasn’t for Native Americans fighting for their homeland we would be speaking German or Japanese or some Arab language,” says Keith Heavyrunner of Montana’s Blackfeet Nation, an Army veteran. “Native Americans couldn’t vote until 1924 and it happened only because President Eisenhower saw what we did in World War One.”

“I don’t know if it’s so much being patriotic as it is more of a calling,” says David Fryberg of Washington State’s Tulalip Tribes. “You have to remember that the male’s status in the tribe was to be a warrior. There are many levels a male could attain and warrior is the highest.”

According to the Census Bureau, there are 185,000 American Indian and Alaska Native vets and a further 25,000 that are Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander.

__________________

"Be good, be kind, help each other. Respect the ground, respect the drum, respect each other."
--Abe Conklin, Ponca/Osage (1926-1995)