Honoring Native Veterans and Response

This post is by Dave Oreiro and a response by Dr. Bill Freeman, both of NW Indian College in Bellingham, Washington.

Veteran's Day is going to be our holiday in which we all have the opportunity to remember our friends, family, and loved ones who sacrificed much while doing sevice to our country. I know we all appreciate and will enjoy our three day week-end and I want to bring some enlightment to the occassion.

My late brother a Vietnam Vet, Mac C. Oreiro, gave me some information that he had gathered about the Native American veteran or warrior, a term he preferred. He would provide insights about some of these types of issues:

• Native Americans participated in all the conflicts or wars that have been documented.
• Lummi Nation has documented Veteran's participating in the Spanish/American War
• Native American women fought along with the men, as far back as 1776 during the Ariscanney War (sp?)
• Of the Native American men enlisting, 94.5% of these men fought in combat units
• Of all the racial groups in the US by population, Native Americans represent the highest percentage in the military at any time.
• Contributions of the Code Talkers mostly Dine' and Comanche Tribes were the best kept military secret ever invented by mortal man.
• Today and historically the Native American men have not received their fair share of the available disabilty, health, education, home loan benefits that they deserved as Veterans.
• Native American Veterans were denied other considerations that included religious practices, sweats, medicine men and other spirtiual acumens to help heal the body and mind that were offered other veteran's during war or in the hospitals.

The myth of the "Mystic Warrior" was something special and interesting to share with you also. The Mystic Warrior was and is still is a part of the mechanism of war and military strategy. The Mystic Warrior was assigned the difficult task of "point man" to lead his squad or platoon through the perilous assignment or thick jungle. The Mystic Warrior was always in tune with the environment and his surroundings. Keen of smell, sight and sound he was the first to know of impending danger or if the enemy was near. This danger could be beyond human as was protrayed by "Billy" in Arnold's jungle and alien thriller "Predator." Armed with a big bowie knife everyone felt safer with the Mystic Warrior leading the way. The Mystic Warrior would also be known as Chief, Skin, Savage, or Injun names that were not always flattering but names all the same to mask the irony of respect and inherent strength found in the veteran or warrior.

Response by Dr. Bill Freeman

The "myth of the Mystic Warrior" had a downside for many Indian warriors in Vietnam. Spero Manson, PhD (Pembina Chippewa), a medical anthropologist and colleagues at University of Colorade School of Medicine, studied American Indian Vietnam vets of 2 major Indian reservations. The purpose was to determine the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] and factors contributing to it. Among other things, they found that Indian soldiers were more often assigned the point man in patrols -- so also more often were wounded and engaged in severe life-threatening battle than non-Indian soldiers. (Was it the Mystic Warrior, or prejudice, or both?) The more severe the experiences, the greater the likelihood of all vets having PTSD, Native or otherwise.

A personal note: I am a Vietnam vet -- 2 years in 'Nam.

One can be an American vet of that war and still recognize the many Vietnamese on both sides who suffered PTSD for the same reasons American veterans do, and who grieve for the same reasons Americans do, due to lost brothers/sisters/fathers/mothers/children. And we can recognize the plight of the Montagnards, the non-Vietnamese tribal people in the interior mountains of Vietnam whom the Special Forcers led as a counterinsurgency effort to hinder the Ho Chi Minh trail -- the indigenous "Indians" of Vietnam. They trusted the Green Beret Americans (US Army Special Forces), but the US abandoned them to the victor Vietnamese when the US left Vietnam. (Yhe anti-Communist Vietnamese and Communist Vietnamese in general both despised the Montagnard people -- sound familiar?)

I saved the lives of some Montagnard people in 1967-1968 as a Special Forces independent duty aidman -- some of them having been attacked by *American* helicopter gunships while working in their fields (yes, some American troops despised the so-called "slopes" [people with slanted eyes, i.e., Asians], too.)

Let us honor American Indian warriors. Let us think about friends and family who are vets.

And let us think about sacrifice and trauma and loss, too.

Thanks, Dave.

Bill