to be here. and i want to thank you for that. and to also be part of the book "warriors in uniform" that has been published and is being distributed. so i hope all of you will be able to eventually get a copy of it because it does talk about all the tribes, not just one tribe. it talks about many of the veterans throughout history from way back to the present time. and as you all know, we have a lot of our boys and girls nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers, serving in the military today.

so we're all touched by that fact that we have, even to this date, that we have relatives still fighting a war in afghanistan. and then as they talk about me being a member, i was the 45th division of oklahoma. and they also the 45th division was also mobilized to a national guard unit or organization. it was mobilized for world war ii as well. and they fought in italy, sicily and those areas coming north to link up in germany during world war ii. i wasn't involved with world war ii, but i was involved with the korean war. that's where i was mobilized

at -- as a young man at the riverside indian school. and the 45th division was mobilized in 1950 at the beginning of the korean war. so i'm a korean war veteran. at that time there were a lot of our students at riverside indian school. we joined the national guard so that we could just get a few dollars every three months. we didn't have no income. so we joined the national guards. because hey, we could get money every so often. but lo and behold, in 1950 the whole 45th division was mobilized. and we were brought into ft

ft. polk. they called it ft. polk. but when i was taken to ft. polk they called it camp polk because it had been closed since the world war ii. and so we spent about maybe almost a month just to get the camp back into operation, get the buildings back in shape. and we used a hammer and nails to get camp polk back in order for us to have some shelter over there and offices and so forth, our training ground. but from there, why then we were after a month or so of trying to rebuild and remodel fort polk, we started our basic training. but a lot of us already, you know, had some training prior to that, my unit was artillery. b battery, 158 field artillery.

and my job was to learn all i can about being a forward observer. sometimes they call them a spotter. but being a forward observer, you're the guy that goes way up in front with the infantry. and you're the one that helps direct artillery fire to the enemy. so that was my job. but before i left oklahoma back in april 1950, and my folks back there are some of the native americans in the audience and my big brother over here, joe medicine crow and his boy there, i think i saw one of my other relatives here.

clayton ogao. did i see him. one of my younger brothers there from the crow tribe. and the folks asked -- or jimmy enku. jimmy enku is one of the songmaker among the kiowas many years ago. and the folks had asked him, they said, well, my boy is getting ready to go overseas to korea. he's home on leave. and they had made a song. so i want to sing that song. because later on the 45th division, that song was given to

all members of the 45th division. also akuto. that's thunderbird in my language. and so that song, i'll try to sing it. i might lose it, but we'll try to sing it for you. we call this the 45th thunderbird song. and every time i go back home, carnegie, oklahoma, they see me and they sing that song. and so when you're among our people, when they sing your song you have to get up and dance. and because jimmy enku made this song. my folks had a big honoring. and they paid for that song. that's the way we do it among our people. we have a feast.

then they have a giveaway. but i want to sing that song. and i'll talk a little more. and then i'm going to turn it back over to the next speaker. ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> thank you. [ applause ]

>> after i joined the national guard, why, i was being the first one to participate in military service. the rest of my brothers, one at a time, started joining military. they said, well, big brother is in there. so we're going to all join one at a time. so at one point in time, three of my brothers were all in vietnam at the same time. i don't think that was supposed to be that way. where family members all in one war zone. and then i had another brother, lonnie emhoolah, who was in line to go in. so he would have been the fourth one going into vietnam.

there's parker emhoolah, there was michael emhoolah, there's hubert emhoolah and then lonnie was waiting to go in. but somehow or another, my mother wrote a letter. i don't know who she wrote it to. the defense department or somewhere. you know, it was one thing we always forget is that the folks, the home folks, the mothers, fathers, their children go off to military. it's just really a hardship on them. they worry about the family, the children, that are in service. they worry about what might happen. because when military men go abroad, they put their lives on the line for our country. not only for our country but for our families, our tribe, all our relations.

and so my folks, my mother, wrote a letter to somebody. i don't know who that was here in washington, d.c. maybe it was one of the presidents that was the president at the time. and they realized that they were putting all the emhoolah boys in vietnam. so that's when they stopped lonnie from going on into vietnam war. so when they learned that, then they moved -- eventually moved one of the brothers out. but they were all in there at the same time. they had a lot of other -- of course a lot of other native americans that were involved in the vietnam war.

and my wife on her side, sergeant pershing iago was also over there. and many of our veterans, they come home and for some reason the war really does -- i've seen these young men that raised the flag at iwo jima. when he came home he just couldn't get his life in balance. and that's what happened to a lot of the military veterans that came back from vietnam. and we're seeing that again now. iraq and afghanistan. a lot of our young people are coming back.

and we want to encourage our government here to provide the things that they need to get back to normal in our country so that they can participate in civilian life and have the same opportunities that every one of us have. and that's what they go fight the war for. but when they come back, sometimes they don't have those same opportunities that everybody else have here. and so we tend to forget that we need to be there for them, be there to give them the education and the training and opportunities so that they can have a normal life. so we hope that there's good medical facilities for our soldiers when they come back.

both men and women. and make sure that they have educational opportunities for them. making sure that there are hospitals that can provide for them that are wounded, that have been wounded and come home. and those things that i think the government does their best. but we need to make sure that these young people when they come home they get help. psychological help. because we all get affected some way. today i have a hard time hearing. i still have a ringing in my ears. because of artillery. it's always been that way. however, when i go to a powwow and hear the drums i can hear the drums. and i like to be a -- i like to be right in there. my whole family is powwow people.

we like to go. we like to sing. we like to enjoy the company. we meet a lot of friends, relatives. that's why i have so many friends throughout the country. it's because i participate with them. and i never fail to try to shake hands with everyone i make friends with. acknowledge them. because there were times, you know, when you put your life on the line you may not get back. so it's always good to see a lot of my friends, relatives. i've seen clayton out there. my bahbi. that means brother. his older brother danny is one of the first ones i met up there. crow country. but we all have a way. and i have a little story about the crow. when the kiowas were in their homeland it's considered up

around yellow stone and titon mountains. from what our stories tell us, that's where we lived around crow country. the crows are related. we're related to them. and when the kiowas moved, i talked about the story yesterday when we moved south. the one thing i failed to mention was that when we moved south and the comanches went along with us, our relatives over the other side of west of the teton was shoshone. the comanches were a branch of that. we all moved south. because we heard there were some horses over there. we wanted to get closer over there. on top of that it was pretty cold up there. my folks used to talk about tunnels going from one teepee to another when they lived up there around the teton mountains many

years ago. our homeland. that's our homeland. but when we moved south, we all moved that way, here comes a band of crows, crow people. they went with us. and through years, through the years they melt right in with the kiowas tribe. so a lot of our kiowas are part crow. and they know that. and so these people, when we fought for our land and fought for our people, the crow people were right with us. so there's a lot of history we can talk about here. and that's what this museum is all about. sure appreciate the u.s. government putting in a museum

for native people here that we can preserve and some of the history that about our native people. i truly thank you all for inviting us to be here and enjoy this beautiful facility here. and the people that i met, i want to say aho i'm going to say just about that o to each one of you. much because we got other speakers. they only gave me five minutes to speak. so here i'm taking 20 minutes so thank you, ladies and gentlemen, very much for being here. ahoo. [ applause ] >> mr. emhoolah can take as much time as he needs.

our next two speakers coming into the home stretch here. but our next two speakers i would like to sort of present them as a team. because they came together in a very violent area of iraq at the time, right outside of fallujah. they were at the air base there. their story is incredible. one, how they came to hold a powwow. two, the stories to get there and facing death to get there. and three, just the fact that in a matter of weeks afterwards there was a full-fledged battle right outside the air base in the town of fallujah. that was the second battle of fallujah for those of you who remember the iraq war. they went in one time, and they a year later went back again. so miss debra mooney will speak first.

and again, she was serving in mr. emhoolah's division, the thunderbird division. she's chocktaw from oklahoma. and her story is incredible. and following her will be mr. chuck boers, apache indian. and when you hear their stories it sort of brings everything from mr. medicine crow on up. and we see how our modern warriors are serving in today's military. so debra? [ applause ] >> i'll get this figured out. i'm big chief note pad number two pencil. electronics aren't real good for me. as he said, i'm debra mooney. i joined the army national guard

in 1991, started out with the thunderbird division, with the 45th. i'm a combat engineer. and i have a connection with every one of these guys. the 45th engineer, the 45th for these guys. my last deployment i was with the field artillery unit. and then i met chuck at the powwow. so i have a connection with every one of them for some way. you know, our indian country is getting smaller. so i joined in 1991. i started out as a quarter master group and then moved into the combat engineers two years later. within the combat engineers i met many people and done a lot of different things. with the traditional national guard, we have a habit of saying, just national guard. well, we're in the combat zones now. our people are falling. they're dying just like the regular army or the regular marines or the navy.

so if you hear anybody say "just national guard" correct them. because we are a part of the military service. and we are a vital part. because a lot more of us are out there in the reservist component than there are regular army now. i don't know the exact numbers. that might be something you might want to look up. but we are a vital part of the military service. so if you hear someone say "just reservist, just national guard" correct them because we're not just. we're service members. we're soldiers. we die. we do whatever we need to do. we follow orders just like anybody else does. now, what i want to do is welcome you to the powwow. like it was said earlier, the display is right outside. i'm very proud to see it. it brings back some good memories when i walked out the door and looked at that. what i'm going to go through today is what it takes to actually put on a pow-wow in a combat zone. it takes so much support from back home.

it takes people that believe in who you are. takes people believing in what you're doing. you got to remember, we're in the middle of a combat zone. so everyone that was there had a mission to do. we all had a job. every day we were given a mission. we had something that had to be done to complete the final mission so we could go home. what the guys did is when we started the pow-wow, how the story started is i was in the mwr room. what that is a communications room where we can use the phone or we have access to the internet. and the person that was in charge of mwr happens to be a chaplin which was a captain from new york. she knew i was involved in my tribal culture. she was -- let me see, chanacoc

indian. and she was on the computer looking through her tribal website because they were having their pow-wow. she knew i was in the other room. and she hollered at me. and she was showing me the pictures of her tribal pow-wow. and we were talking about how much we miss our pow-wows and how long it's been since we ever missed a pow-wow. she was like myself. we were there every time the door opened, so to speak. and so i just mentioned just off the top of my head, matter of fact, i think it was more out of my heart, why don't we put on a pow-wow here? the mention of this pow-wow really wasn't the first time mentioned. when we first hit iraq, i was assigned a tent. i had several females in the tent with me. and it just so happened that four of those, including myself, happened to be choctaw. and we had mentioned it. of course, nothing went about because we were from different companies and we all after we got settled we went different places. the army will send one company

one way and one company another way. we weren't together. so the idea just drifted away. but when we were in that room and looking at her pow-wow pictures, and i mentioned that, i didn't realize that i was mentioning it to the person that can actually have the influence to do something about it. she went to the battalion commander and the battalion commander asked her, okay, who is actually -- who's going to be in charge of this? who's going to do this? she told him, well, it's sergeant mooney. immediately he said it was okay. at least that's the story i got. i wasn't in the room. she came knocking on my door and being a female growing up with three brothers and two adopted brothers, i have an ornery streak. i didn't know if i was in trouble or not when she knocked on the door and said, you need to see the battalion commander. i was trying to figure out in my head what i did wrong that day

or maybe yesterday and they just found out. i went in and he talked for a few minutes. i really wasn't understanding what he was talking about. and then he mentioned about our culture and then it dawned on me that he was talking about the pow-wow that the captain and i were talking about. and he asked if i could put it on. if i could actually pull this off. and, you know, you're not going to tell your battalion commander you can't do anything. so i said, yes. and then later thought about what in the world? why did i say that? but i went in. and we discussed the time line. yesterday i had mentioned that we had three weeks but the truth was what we put a time limit, we put three weeks. if we didn't get everything that we needed, the drum, the drumsticks, things that we need to actually put on a pow-wow, then we were going to cancel the pow wow. but we actually had five weeks to get it done. now the mail takes two weeks to get there. so we were pretty limited with

time even when i forgot about the other two weeks. but it was pretty limited. so what we did immediately is we started a committee. we had subcommittees. everybody was working all at the same time. and i'm going to read some of the subcommittees off and the committees and introduce you to some of the people. because i'm up here and you see me. and i'm talking to you and telling you about an experience that i had that i assisted in but i'm telling you the truth is that if these guys and some other guys in the background if they did not come to do a pow-wow, if they did not bring their heart and bring everything they had inside of them to get this done, i wouldn't be standing here talking to you. so i may be the mouthpiece. but i guarantee you, i did not do this alone. this is not my project. actually, with the display, it's all of our projects now. so welcome to the pow-wow. for the army, you know, we have our sops, field manuals and everything else that we have to go by.

and then in the pow-wow world, we also have our own regulations and things we do, the traditions. so we were fighting with the traditions of the military and traditions with several different tribes. there were the choctaw, cherokees, creeks, there were several different tribes. so what we did, what we decided to do is we had three people and myself and we wrote down on a board exactly what offends you. what offends your tribe? then we wrote down what honors your tribe? and then that's what we did. we made sure we didn't do anything that offended anybody else. then we made sure that we honored everything that was honorable to their specific tribes. what would designate their tribe? then we went from there.

the first thing we needed was a drum. so we had a drum committee, a crafts committee. when we set up the pow-wow, we set it up for two days. we did the game day. and within that game day, we had stick balls, stick ball game and, of course, we made all of that from everything we could find that wasn't tied down in iraq. and then we had indian marbles. we had blow dart game which the blow darts were actually donated by cherokee nation. and we had tomahawk throws. now with the tomahawk we actually made those tomahawks there in iraq. we found a box of mallets. of course, they were broken. we couldn't use anything that was serviceable. so they were unserviceable. so we cut them and used part of the stick to make the stick ball stick.