Reznet

Ivan Posey, left, and John St. Clair etch a name from the wall of the Vietnam Memorial.Reznet Photo by Victor Merina

Natives’ Journey to Inauguration Completes a Soldier’s Quest

By Victor Merina

[Editor's note: Victor Merina was in Washington for reznet covering the presidential inauguration, the American Indian Pow Wow and the American Indian Inaugural Ball. This is his final story.]

WASHINGTON — For some tribal members, the journey to Inaugural Week began with a sweat and a prayer ceremony on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation as they cleansed and purified themselves for the long trip east.

John St. Clair and Harrison "Bunny" Shoyo were like most of the travelers — a blend of young and old, Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho — exhilarated about representing their state in the Inaugural Parade for Barack Obama.

In that group of 15 Native American dancers, drummers, singers and flag carriers, St. Clair held aloft one of the state, U.S. or tribal flags as part of a color guard that would set the pace for the others. Shoyo, one of the singers and hand-drummers, helped set the rhythm and tempo for others in regalia who performed the traditional dances, the fancy dances and the jingle dances in a colorful wave that glided along the parade route.

Neither the 66-year-old St. Clair nor the 63-year-old Shoyo will ever forget that Inauguration Day experience. But for these Eastern Shoshones, sharing in a historic moment was only a part of the memories they would take back to Wyoming.

24 Hours Later

Twenty-four hours after marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, away from the vast crowds and worldwide media they encountered during the inauguration festivities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, they brought gifts for administrators. Visited soldiers who were wounded in Iraq. Spoke to military families who sat at their love ones' bedside. And voiced songs and prayers for the soldiers as well as those who cared about them.

In the beginning, in an empty family room, the tribal members gathered, and Shoyo, one of the spiritual leaders, led a prayer ceremony seeking spiritual help for the soldiers they would see. Many of these soldiers had been "derooted" from their everyday lives, Shoyo said. They had been thrown into combat and need to be "replanted" into a more nourishing world. And the Shoshones and others had come to help in any way they could.

Minutes later, Shoyo was leaning over a young Army sergeant in his 20s whose maimed legs and crushed foot were wrapped in heavy bandages. The soldier's father stood by trying to make his son more comfortable. His equally young wife was helping as well. And as Shoyo spoke, he handed the soldier his own precious participant's badge that said he had walked in the Inaugural Parade.

"Someday, this might help you think of this day," he told the soldier from Tennessee who listened through half-closed eyes. "Thank you for your sacrifice."

'Home of Warrior Care'

St. Clair, standing nearby after having had his own visit with the soldier, knew about military sacrifice. He had been wounded in Vietnam as an Army lieutenant in the Mekong Delta some four decades ago. Now he found himself walking through Ward 57 — the self-proclaimed "Home of Warrior Care" — and could see the wheelchairs stacked in alcoves, antiseptic soap bottles hanging by the elevator doors, the get-well signs on the corridor walls, and the constant bustle of nurses, doctors and orderlies. Even on the threshold of a fast-approaching Super Bowl, he was reminded of his own painful recovery from injuries suffered in another distant war our decades earlier.

"I remember listening to the Jets-Colts Super Bowl from my hospital bed," said St. Clair with a pause. "The soldiers here have a long recovery ahead."

As the group gathered in the hallways or stepped from room to room, the Shoshones — with their Wind River jackets and formidable presence — drew their share of attention. Hospital workers greeted them warmly. Bed-ridden soldiers waved. And soldiers and family in one hospital room nodded in quick assent when Brian Standing Rock, a Chippewa and Cree who had married into a Shoshone family, asked if he and the other tribal members could sing a special song.

It was called "Soldier Boy" and composed by the Blackfeet Nation, he said, and it is sung to "honor, respect and thank" those serving in the military. As he and the others began singing, the young soldiers in their beds closed their eyes and the young wife and father listened quietly as these tribal members from another generation, another war and another sovereign nation chanted and sang to them

'Thank You for Remembering'

In the hallway afterward, Dolores "Cookie" Wolf of Cape May, N.J., whose son had arrived at Walter Reed two weeks earlier from Iraq, walked up to the group. She apologized to the Shoshones for not being able to see her 22-year-old son, Spec. Robert Andrzejcvak. He had lost a leg from the injuries he suffered in a grenade attack in Iraq, she said, and was still being examined by doctors.

"He took it better than his mom did," Wolf said of her son's amputation. "He said, ‘I got a late Christmas present. I'm alive.' "

The 51-year-old mother then went down the line and shook each Native's hand. "Thank you for coming," she said when she was done. "Even with this war still going on, you don't see much about it in the news anymore. People forget. Thank you for remembering."

It was that loss of recognition, that fear of fading memories that led to this post-Inaugural trip for the Wind River group. Ivan Posey, the chairman of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council, which governs the tribe, had helped organize the visit to Walter Reed. He also was determined to ferry the group to the Vietnam Memorial on the National Mall before they left town.

Posey, a Vietnam-era vet, was intent on honoring his own brother who had served in Vietnam and returned to the reservation to a troubled life in which drinking problems and post-traumatic stress from his war experiences led him on a downward spiral. His brother died in a house fire in 1979, said Posey, who still counts him as a war casualty.

Those stories are familiar to Indian Country, especially for those veterans who served in Vietnam, Posey said. He pointed to soldiers who were killed and those who were wounded and those who simply survived — and whose lives were never the same afterward. All should be remembered, said Posey, and during their visit to Washington, he was determined that the message would be heard not only by officials but by the young Shoshone teenagers who had danced in the parade and could see the impact made on the older tribal members as they visited the wounded from Iraq and revisited the memories of those who did not survive Vietnam.

By visiting the soldiers, Posey said the Vietnam veterans in his group also would gain something in the experience.  "That is very powerful when you think of the medicine they will offer and what they will receive in return," he said.

Gifts for the Colonel

At Walter Reed, part of that mission was accomplished when the group met Col. Norvell V. Coots, the commander of the hospital's health care system. They presented him with gifts including the figure of a fancy dancer fashioned out of iron and an 1890s photo of Shoshone chiefs surrounding the most revered leader of them all, Chief Washakie.

John Washakie, the great grandson of the legendary chief, was among the visitors gathered around Coots and as a veteran of the 101st Airborne Division who served in Vietnam, he called it a moving experience because of his own family history.

"The person I was named after — John Washakie — was killed in World War I," he said. A former tribal chairman, Washakie said he wanted to not just experience the parade but to help the young Natives in the group understand its historic significance as well as help government officials appreciate the contributions of Natives in the military and elsewhere.

When it came time for the group presentation, it was St. Clair who spoke for everyone, and there in the lobby of Walter Reed, he gave the colonel a brief history lesson on the role Natives have played in the U.S. armed services and the sacrifices they have made despite a tangled history with the American government.

"The point I was making with that is that at one time Native Americans were considered the enemy," St. Clair recalled later. "We were the subject of wars until the 1880s. But in spite of that, we volunteered to fight even before we became citizens of the United States.

"We've always had that tradition of being warriors, and history has proven that even to this day," he added. "And that makes me proud to be a Native American and a Native American veteran."

Revisiting Vietnam

For St. Clair, now the chief tribal judge on the Wind River Reservation, there was one more important piece of business to take care of before leaving Washington. On the bus ride to the Vietnam Memorial, he spoke of his roommate at Oklahoma State University, a Creek who left school and enlisted in the Army before St. Clair and who arrived in Vietnam first.

"I lost touch with him," said St. Clair. "Then I heard he had been killed, but I never knew for sure."

For more than four decades, St. Clair has wondered what happened to his friend. But he was reluctant to find out although he wondered from a distance whether the name of his former roommate was among the 58,260 names listed on the Vietnam Memorial wall.

As their bus edged along the Washington streets, the Shoshones found themselves caught in a traffic jam from leftover visitors from Inauguration Day. With the sun setting, the worries began. St. Clair and the others grew concerned about reaching the Vietnam Memorial while there was still light.

When they finally disembarked, the sun was low on the horizon, and by the time the group had made it to the wall itself, the sunlight was rapidly fading.

When they arrived at the memorial, some tribal members walked slowly along the monument or stood silently, lost in their individual thoughts. Others took photos of the wall and nearby statues. Still others quickly took off in search of the names of two Wind River tribal members who had died in Vietnam. When they found their names — Roy J. Snyder, a Shoshone, and Weldon Moss, a Northern Arapaho — there was a quiet celebration.

St. Clair's Search

But St. Clair found his own search more frustrating. As dusk approached, he was lost in the avalanche of names. Then a guide at the memorial pointed him to a registry and suggested he look up his roommate's name to locate his spot on the ebony wall.

As he searched the registry, St. Clair discovered the entry and the single line of information that would end the mystery of more than 40 years:

Josh Peters.

Salina, OK. PFC Army. DOB 1/12/1945. DOD 5/20/1967. Panel: 20E. Line: 66.

With darkness falling, St. Clair quickly went to the wall panel that was supposed to include his friend's name. Counting the lines and scanning the names on the smooth surface, he finally found what he had been seeking and traced the letters with his finger: J-o-s-h P-e-t-e-r-s. He took a deep breath, and there was a tiny smile on his lips.

St. Clair wanted to etch Peters' name on a piece of paper that was given to him. But he had no pencil to make the copy. When Ivan Posey, the Shoshone tribal chairman, brought a pen, both men tried to rub the name so it would appear but to no avail.

A woman suggested using her lipstick but they still could not lift the name to paper. Finally, in near darkness, the woman offered her eyebrow pencil. And with that, a name began to emerge on the paper. So did the memories. There was Josh Peters, the fun-loving guy who made people laugh and would hitchhike home for visits.  Josh Peters, who worked part-time as an artist to make it through school. Josh Peters, who along with his roommate John St. Clair, started a student Indian club together while in college.

"I'm sorry I'm so emotional," St. Clair said as he stood in the darkness next to the wall. He was holding the small piece of paper in his hand and kept looking at what he had etched. "I knew his name would be here but I guess I hoped it wouldn't."

He sighed. "But it's good to have," he said as he began the journey home. "It's one reason I came here. Not just for the inaugural but to find this."

Victor Merina is reznet's senior correspondent and special projects editor. A former Los Angeles Times investigative reporter and finalist for the Pulitizer Prize, he also is a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism. Merina is a visiting faculty member at The Poynter Institute, where he leads seminars on cross-cultural reporting and writing about race.