BRAVE SUCKER
A Brave NDN

When I go to the dentist I don’t use Novocain, I have had extractions and root canals done without Novocain. When I was growing up on the Nawizi Reservation none of us had much material possessions, so we got some of our self-esteem from being ”tough,” not in the sense of fighting others, but we were “tough” when we had no gloves or caps on a cold day, we were “tough” when we did not have enough to eat, or, when we fell down and got hurt we were “tough.” We didn’t show our pain, and crying was for girls and big babies.

We were told by the tribal elders that the Dakota Indians of old were “tough” and so we tried our best to emulate them. Getting drunk or half buzzed up and mouthing off and picking a fight at a bar was not “Tough.”

Toughness is looking your circumstances in the eye and spitting. Later in my life I would discover the US Marines had a similar concept. The Marines say “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

I wasn’t a bad kid when I was a growing up, in high school peer pressure became a stronger influence then mom and dad and Almighty God. Consequently, I did very little studying in high school and spent way to much of my time hanging out with my gang.

I am thankful today that the school officials perfunctorily passed me from grade to grade. I never considered myself a dummy, but my buddies and girl friends were a big, big distraction when it came to schooling. I never learned what a gerund, dangling participle, or a prepositional phrase are, still don‘t to this day, and my writing is evidence of that.

There were a little over twenty-five hundred people who lived in Bumduck South Dakota and for a town of its size Bumduck had numerous youth gangs, white gangs, Indian gangs, and gangs that were white and Indians. Back in the 1950’s our gangs were not the same as modern-day violent urban gangs. If you lived on the north, east, west, or south side of town you naturally hung out with the other boys and girls on your side of town. We were very territorial, you did not walk through another part of town without your gang, walking through someone else’s neighborhood alone could get your butt kicked.

There were areas that were neutral territory, like the Main Street, the football and baseball park, and the schools.

A fist fight or a rock throwing fight usually settled our differences. Most of the time we were at peace with each other but every now and then the white gangs and Indian gangs would fight each other, but there was not the intense racial hatred we see in other parts of the country. No one ever used clubs, knives, or bottles, because that was considered “Chicken.” And the worst thing you could be called was a “Chicken.”

“Chicken” was the exact opposite of “Tough.”

It was a good environment to grow up in because it taught us racial tolerance, although at that time none of us understood the meaning of the words.

After my junior year, during the summer months I started to stay out all night and then sleep as long as I could during the hot summer days.

Eighteen years old was the legal age to drink 3.2 beer in South Dakota, most of us weren’t eighteen, but for a quart of beer we could always find a willing soul to buy us booze.

One of my friends had an “old bomb” of a car. Gas was only .24¢ a gallon. Our daily goal was to by crook or rook scrape up enough money for a few gallons of gas, a “Big Six” (6 quarts of 3.2 beer), and snag some Indian chicks. Fortunately, there was always Indian chicks who were rebelling from their parents just like the Indian boys.

After we hustled enough money for a gas, a big six, a pack of Pall Malls, and some willing Indian chicks, we would drive out of town way from the city cops - to park, smoke, drink beer, and swap spit with the Indian chicks.

We had many places to choose from - the many lakes in the area, “Everybody’s Place,” “The Evergreens,” and my favorite parking place, the “Top of the World.”

This may surprise you but there was very little sex, although that was our unstated goal and we came pretty close a lot of times. None of the Indian chicks wanted to get “knocked up and most of us came from “church” families, and like I said, we were all decent kids, just a little on the rebellious side.

During the summer of my junior year, I met Rose White Shunk, a Southern Cheyenne Indian girl from Oklahoma who came to visit her relatives on the Nawizi Reservation. “Rose Ah’ Sharn” and I got along real well that summer, I loved her southern drawl. We talked of getting married after we finished high school, but sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we plan. I never seen Rose again after the summer of 1963.

There weren’t many employment opportunities on the reservation. A Indian kid out of high school had basically four options.

Stay on the reservation and make the most of it.

Go on the BIA Relocation Program, which was a one-way bus ticket to several major cities to find a job.

Go to Haskell, a Indian vocational school in Lawrence Kansas.

Or, you go into the military.

I scrambled my senior year to get enough credits to graduate. I didn’t bother me one bit that I was near the bottom of my graduating class. In my heart I knew I was no dummy.

Staying on the reservation was not an option for me.

My grades would not allow me to get into Haskell, and I did not want to sign up for the Relocation Program. I had heard to many horror stories of the BIA abandoning you once you got to Dallas, San Francisoco, Los Angeles, and other places. I did not want any part of that. So, I joined the Marine Corps.

Part Two

In 1964 the United States Marine Corps did not have the Armed Service Vocation Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test used today to determine qualification for enlistment in the armed forces.

They shoved a flashlight up your butt and looked down your throat, if they couldn’t see any light you were a US Marine. Young men from all over America looking for adventure are never in short supply.

In 1964 the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions, about 20,000 men in each division were preparing for war in Southeast Asia.

There are a lot of different jobs in the Marine Corps, but the heart and soul of the Marine Corps are the Grunts, the Ground Pounder’s, the Snuffy’s, the infantryman.

I actually liked boot camp, it was quite a change from the reservation lifestyle. I arrived at recruit training in San Diego and hit the ground running. I gave boot camp a 110 percent effort.

For the first time in my life I was physical and mentally challenged and I liked it so much that I volunteered to be a grunt Marine.

After boot camp the next phase of training is the Infantry Training Regiment, who's mission is to train and qualify Marines in infantry specialties, preparing the young Marines for the day when they will be “conducting expeditionary combat operations," as they explained it.

I was trained in reconnaissance and the Marine Corps martial arts program. After eight months of Marine training I was a 175 pounds “lean, mean, Marine, fighting, machine.”

I came home on a ten day furlough. I discovered that a couple of my friends went to Haskell, a couple went on Relocation, and several joined the Army. And, of course some choose to stay on the reservation.

I spent the first eighteen years of my life on the reservation and never dreamed that I would ever leave it, but after eight months of living in a completely different environment the reservation did not feel like home anymore.

I went into the Pool Hall looking for any friends who did not do to Haskell, Relocation, or the Army and I did not find any. I ordered a round of beer for the few customers in the Pool Hall.

This big Indian dude, who stood over six feet four inches and weighted two hundred and fifty pounds comes up to me and demands I buy him a pitcher of beer.

I was not looking for a fight but was very confident that my Marine training could “knock him into tomorrow.” The Marine Corps marital arts instructors placed a strong emphasis on restraint when dealing with obnoxious civilians.

I said, “Go away Chief, I am not looking for any trouble.”

“Are you calling me Chief?” “You punk ass punk, I’m gonna’ kick your ass,” and he takes a swing at me.

I block his swing with Osoto Gari, a basic martial arts self-defense move.

Chief is on the floor and I quickly decide that I won’t finish him off.

“Hoolay, how did you do that?” “Did you learn that in the Marine Corps,” the beer drinkers ask?

I was embarrassed for myself, I did not want to hurt or humiliate Chief lying on the floor.

“Osoto Gari,” I say.

Ta ku? (What)

I didn’t give an explanation, I left the bar and did not come back to the Nawizi reservation for four years.

I returned to Camp Pendleton and after completing reconnaissance training I was transferred to Okinawa and assigned to the Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. 1st Recon consisted of Headquarters and Service Company, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Force Recon Company.

In June 1966, the 1st Marine Division was making plans to expand its tactical area of responsibility (TAOR) northward to Tam Ky Vietnam, the capital of the Quang Tin province.

The battle plan was divided into two phases.

The first phase was to send in small recon units in an area near the Hiep Duc district. The known headquarters of the 2nd North Vietnamese Army somewhere near the Que Son Valley.

The second phase consisted of acting on the recon team's “intel” and sending in a large joint show-of-force.

On the afternoon of June 13, our thirteen-man recon team landed by helicopters in the middle of the Que Son Valley, on the small mountain of Nui Loc Son. In the course of the next 24-hours, six more recon units were deployed in different strategic positioning sites, ringing the valley.

This enabled the teams to actively report on enemy activity. Up to eight battalions were on full standby - four battalions of Marines and four ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) battalions ready to go against any hostile forces encountered.

Our recon team worked our way south of Hiep Duc, after we set up positions along the heavily wooded Hill 555 we spotted several groups NVA forces of varying size that appeared to be training in the area.

The next day on June 14, a scout dog accompanying an enemy patrol caught scent of the recon Marines and the enemy patrol advanced towards our position.

The battle was on.

Throughout the night, close air support, artillery strikes, and gunship fire support pounded the enemy, but the NVA didn't lighten up as they launched three strong attacks against our thirteen man recon team. By 0400 that morning, six out of thirteen Marines in my team were killed in action. Every other man was hit at least once. While we were suffering from ammunition shortages some recon Marines resorted to throwing rocks at the enemy. Others managed to pick up captured AK-47 rifles.

Overall, the six recon teams had reported over 141 sightings of enemy forces. The second phase of the operation commenced along with artillery and air strikes, dispersing the enemy. Operation Kansas ended on June 22, 1966.

I thought for sure I was going to die in the Que Song Valley.

To survive combat or any life threatening situation you need to subordinate your fear. Even then that may not be enough, when your number is up, your number is up.

Fear is the enemy. If you let fear get the best of you, you’re a dead man. The rest is up to good training and a blind luck.

I received a Purple Heart for a minor shrapnel wound and the Bronze Star for valor in the Que Song Valley action.

Several months later I received a second Bronze Star. I didn’t think I did anything to deserve it.

All I did was stand up and draw enemy fire to myself. It was kind of dumb now that I think about it but our Corpsman needed to get up to where a wounded Marine was.

Later “Doc” says, “You crazy ass Indian, exposing yourself like that, what were you thinking Little Chief?”

“I guess I wasn’t,” I replied.

“But, thanks Marine, we got the wounded Marine out of harms way,” Doc said.

The Marines called enemy held territory “Indian Country.” And, they called me “Little Chief.”

It did not bother me, I never thought it was racial.

After the battle in Que Son Valley we went to six man recon teams, a recon team is usually inserted into Indian Country after a series of false insertions. A Marine helicopter pretends to land in several different locations so as to confuse the NVA where the team was actually inserted.

Part Three

The purpose of a recon team is to gather intelligence rather then engage the enemy. A recon team will stay out in the “bush” for a few hours up to a week, depending on the mission.

Recon was like being a good traditional Indian dancer. A good traditional dancer is actually imitating an Indian scout as he dances to the beat of the drum, he looks down and scans the ground for any tell tale signs of the enemy or the animal he is tracking. He straightens up his eyes darting to the front, to the left and to the right, sharp jerky movements like a hawk. He will dance upright for a bit and then back down to scan the ground once again.

Big Chief and I were the eyes and ears of our recon team.

Our recon team was made up of six Marines - two white guys, Balthazar Bellowchek from upstate New York and “Doc Smitty,” our Navy Corpsmen; two Mexican’s, Manuel “Taco” Perez from Tucson and Salvador “Sally” Palacious from Dallas; and Joe “Big Chief ”Bear Claw, a Crow Indian from Montana.

We would go to hell and back for each other and vowed that there was no way the Gooks were going to kill us without paying a heavy toll themselves.

We carried Claymore mines, 25 to 30 clips of M-16 ammo each, and 6 to 10 fragmentation grenades, along with water and C-rations.

“Doc Smitty,” in addition to his medical supplies carried his share of ammo and the M-79 grenade launcher.

Recon Marines do not engage the enemy unless they absolutely have to. Our mission is to track the whereabouts of the enemy. As the situation dictates, we will call in an air strike or artillery barrage on the enemy and then fade back into the double and triple canopy jungle.

The Recon Marines called this tactic “Snoop and Poop.”

The Gooks knew we are out there somewhere, and they we looking for us, just like we are looking for them. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse. Outsmarting the enemy was half the job - the terrain, the heat, the humidity, the rain, the snakes, and the god zillion bugs was a never ending challenge.

On one mission we were sure the Gooks were on to us so we called for an immediate helicopter evacuation. The jungle was so dense that they radioed back and said they could not get us out and ordered us to walk out. We spent the next seventy-eight hours running, walking, and crawling our way out of the Que Son Valley, heading east toward the South China Sea, convinced the Gooks were hot on our trail.

Our six man team managed to stay together for nine months, which was quite an accomplishment because members of a recon team can and do get sick, injured, or killed, and some members rotate home at different times.

Except for my heavy action at the beginning of my tour in Vietnam my team went without sustaining any further casualties. On the tenth month of our tour the commanding officer of 1st Recon decided to pull us out of the “bush” and ordered us to remain in the “rear with the beer,” to train new Recon Marines on the finer points of reconnaissance in Vietnam.

Indian culture taught me that we belong to a Tiospiya or family group, and even though the families can at times fight like cats and dogs we are taught that “blood is thicker than water,” meaning that it is your family who you owe your first allegiance too. That makes absolute sense when you think about the Indian of old and how they lived and survived. They had no one to depend on but themselves, their family, and blood relatives.

Recon was an extension of my Indian culture.

After a full day of “snoop and poop” our reconnaissance team would set out the Claymore mines and then “harbor” in for the night, two Marines would always be on watch, while the other four would their eat c-rations, clean their weapons, attend to personal hygiene, whisper quietly, and sleep. Every two hours a new pair would take over the watch.

You get to know your recon buddies real well, you know their girlfriends, what kind of cars they drove, if they were still ’Cherries,” their political and religious views.

Balthazar Bellowchek wanted to be a highway patrolman.

Doc Smitty was going to medical school.

Taco was going to use the GI bill and be the first one in his family to go to college.

Sally said he was going to stay buzzed up for a year and try to screw every Mexican chick in Houston.

Big Chief named six Crow Indian chicks that he was going to “bang,” as he called it, when he got back to the reservation. Big Chief was the oldest member of the team at age twenty-three.

I was twenty, not old enough to legally drink in most states. I told them about Rose White Skunk and for some odd reason the two Mexican and two white guys found this very funny. We must have talked about Indian names and Balthazar for two months out in the bush.

Big Chief in a “Name Giving” ceremony out in the bush gave Balthazar the name “Balls.” He called Doc “Medicine Bag.” Taco was given the name “Whistle Berries,” and Sally, he called “Likes to Bullshit.”

The only thing we would actually get us mad at each other was if someone stole your bottle of Tabasco sauce. Tabasco sauce was what made c-ration tolerable. We put Tabasco sauce on every thing except our peaches and pound cake c-rations. If we ran out of Tabasco sauce we’d radio into our command post and request to be extracted, of course, we couldn’t say we were out of Tabasco sauce, we’d say the Gooks were on to us.

The closest our team came to getting wiped out was when in late afternoon one hot day we took a break to eat some “C’s” and re-hydrate. All six of us sat in a perimeter looking outward. We quietly opened our “C’s” and just like that, no more the 20 feet away a group of 30 or more Gooks came walking by. We quietly aimed our weapons at them and held our breathe, lest the enemy hears us breathing. They walked right pass us, unaware that we could have blown them all away. By allowing them to walk unharmed through our kill zone, we also lived to fight another day.

They say discretion is the better part of valor.

After my thirteen month tour of duty was over I was assigned to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, as a Marine security guard.

I did not even go home on the usual 30 day leave, instead I took the bus and hitchhiked my way to Virginia. I called home and told my mom and dad that I safely made it back to the United States. I would travel so far and in the evening stop and get a cheap hotel room and sit in a bar and sip beer and reflect on my time in Vietnam and my five great friends that I made in recon.

I did not like the peacetime Marine Corps, which was kind of crazy because when your in “Nam” you can’t wait to get out of “Nam,” and when you get a cushy job like I had, I wished I was back in the “Nam.”

I was discharged from the Marines in June 1968.

After Vietnam Joe Bear Claw was assigned to Yuma Air Station and was discharged a couple of months before I got out. We stayed in touch, he gave me his phone number and an open invitation to come visit him in Montana.

I caught a military “hop” out of Andrews Air Force near Washington, D.C. to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, where Joe picked me up in his “Indian Car.” A beat up old 1957 Chevy.

We drank for a week. When we sobered up we bought some supplies and when into the mountains and pretended we were in Recon. We would lie under the stars of Big Sky Country and talk about our adventures in Vietnam. Joe and I went out into the mountains on several occasions during my three month stay in Montana. It was therapeutic for both of us. We agreed that we did ourselves and the Indian race proud. And in the mountains of Montana we agreed to let Vietnam go and move on with our lives.

On the night before I left Montana Joe “Big Chief” Bear Claw says to me, “We were some Brave Mutha’ Suckers weren‘t we Little Chief?”

“Yes we were, Big Balls, Medicine Bag, Whistle Berries, and Likes to Bullshit were some Brave Suckers.”

“We was some badass Marines,” I said.

I caught the bus back to the Nawizi Indian Reservation in Bumduck South Dakota.

Montana and South Dakota are a world away from the Que Son Valley.

Part Four

On Indian reservations throughout American there was a gradual awakening from a century old hibernation beginning in the late 1960’s and early 70’s.

There was no end in sight for the war in Vietnam and the US governments “War on Poverty” was picking up steam on many Indian reservations.

The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty Programs including Vista, Job Corps, Head Start, Legal Services, and the Community Action Program.

I drew unemployment for only a month and then applied for a position at the reservation Head Start Program and to my surprise I was hired to be a Father Aide.

My first civilian job.

Since many of the Head Start children came from homes with absentee fathers the Head Start Program decided that they would hire several males to serve as role models for the fatherless children.

At night I would lie awake and think that it was only a year ago that I was in the “Bush” calling artillery and air strikes on the Viet Cong and NVA and now I was reading Goldie Locks and Little Red Riding Hood stories to four and five year old Indian children!

My recon team were “Life Takers and Heart Breakers,” and now I was giving life to these little Indian children.

After school one day I went for a long walk and cried. Which surprised me. I did not know why I cried. I had convinced myself that I was “hardcore.”

I had neglected the religious faith of my parents and grandparents while serving as a US Marine.

I went to see my grandmother. When she opened the door I smelled fresh bread baking.

“Grandma, how have you been, I haven’t seen you in years, I am sorry I never wrote or called, but I was in Vietnam, you know, where they are fighting.”

“Oh my, she says, I suppose they were drinking.”

“Ha ha ha ha, not even Grandma.” “I suppose they were drinking, ha ha ha ha.”

“Woon gay Grandma, that‘s a good one.”

Grandma laughs along with me and then says Grandpa is downtown shooting the bull with his buddies.

“Hey Grandson, what do you call a gay Indian?”

“I don’t know.”

“Brave suckers,” Grandma says laughing at her own joke.

“I’m on a roll,’ she continues, ‘What do you call an Indian driving a Cadillac.

“I don’t know.”

“A car thief,” she says.

“I see you haven‘t lost your sense of humor.”

“I’ll have hot rolls and butter in a few minutes, it is so good to see you my grandson.”

“Is everything okay?“

“I am hesitant to ask you how it was in Vietnam, so I won’t, I am just glad you made it back in one piece.”

“I was wounded once Grandma, and it was tough at times, but I keep thinking about getting home.”

“In a crazy way it was kind of fun, it wasn’t all about fighting Grandma.” “I met some great guys from all over the United States.”

“What was real bad was the Monsoon, it would rain for weeks at a time.” “And the bugs and snakes.” “We even ran into a tiger one time.” “And, one time I got bit by a monkey.” “Crazy times.”

“But, I made it Grandma and guess what?”

“I got a job working for Head Start Program.”

“You did?” she says genuinely surprised.

“What do you do, drive the bus?” “Sweep the floors?”

“No, I am a Father Aide.”

“What the heck is a Father Aide,” Grandma asks.

“A lot of the little ones don’t have a daddy at home, so it is my job to give them a positive male role model, it’s kind of a cool job Grandma.”

“I really like working with the little ones.”

“Grandma, last year I was on the other side of the world killing Gooks and I never once thought that maybe some of them had little children of their own, and now here I am on this side of the world giving life to little Indian kids.”

“Grandma, after work one day I went for a long walk and I cried.”

I don’t know why I cried Grandma, that is why I came to see you.”

Grandma took the bread out of the oven and set it on the table to cool and then motioned me to sit down and then she sat down.

She lowered her head and I could see tears coming down her cheeks. For a long time she was silent.

Finally she spoke. “I was afraid of that.” “War is no damn good!”

“One night in a dream, I seen you and other soldiers running and running, I did not know what the dream meant, and in the dream I could tell that you boys were not afraid, the next day I went and told your mom and dad and we all agreed that that the dream meant you would be okay.”

“Grandson, I am going to take this bread and break it and ask God to bless it, just like Jesus did.” She took the break and gave me a piece and then she took a piece of bread and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for my safe return.

She took another piece of the bread and asked God to forgive her Grandson.

“God in His infinite wisdom knew that mankind will always wage war.”

“Is it true that those you knew who were killed were some of the nicest guys you ever met?” Grandma asked.

“If that is true, then those who you fought on the other side of the world must have also been nice guys who were just doing there job, just like you.”

“They weren’t nice guys Grandma, but I think I understand what you mean.”

“But, yes, that is true Grandma,” I say.

“They were some of the nicest guys I ever met, tough, loyal, and brave.”

Tears welled up in my eyes and I cried deep sobs. I let go of those emotions that I held in myself far to long.

“It will take awhile for the pain to go away, but time is the great healer and unfortunately the good do die young, Grandma said.”

“Grandma, me and my Marine buddies weren’t gay, but we were some brave suckers,” I said smiling.

“I know, Grandson, I know.” Grandma laughed, and I laughed.

I regained my composure and wiped my tears on my sleeve.

Those little ones in Head Start that I was a surrogate parent to are now parents and grandparents themselves and most of them turned out to be good Indian citizens.

I have been home forty years now.

Even after all those years I will occasionally find myself sitting somewhere lost in deep thought.

They call this the “Thousand Yard Stare.” Lost in my thoughts of Big Chief, Balls, Taco, Sally, and Doc Smithy, and places visited, and things done many, many years ago.

Grandma went to the Spirit World thirty years ago.

She was right, it is true that the good die young, and time will heal all wounds.

The End