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I want to tell you something. Something from my heart. I am a combat veteran. Really, a combat veteran in many ways. I fought for the USA, in Panama, and in Iraq. I watched a good friend of mine get killed right in front of me. I was wounded myself. I fought for this country, as have many Indians.

We believe that we embody the very ideals this country is supposed to stand for-sovereignty, and freedom. And yet, we go home to our reservations, and find multi-national mining companies, or oil companies, robbing us. Stealing our resources at the behest of this government. Forcefully relocating us off of our ancestral lands. Polluting our homelands. We see our children born stupid. We see the rules change every time we begin to empower ourselves.

I am also a combat veteran of a different type. I have had to defy the agents of the state, and break the laws of this country, to protect my people. I have had to run for my life, while on Indian land, only because I stood up for my people, and our rights. More than anyone, Indian people want to believe in the highest ideals of what this country is supposed to be about. But it is tragic, a sickeningly tragic disillusionment, when we see how this country still feels about us. The Indian wars are not over, they are just fought differently. But our people are still dying. Everything we stand for is still under assault. I don't know if any of this makes any sense. But we have begun to think the way we do about this government, for our very survival.

If we are wrong in some of our assertions, then that loss of truth is another casualty of what happens when people are assaulted from every direction. We didn't choose this life of constantly running. It's like being chased by something we do not understand.

Perhaps this makes no sense to you, either. Perhaps you and I are truly different. Perhaps it's physiology, our DNA. Perhaps our ancestral belief structures that are so different that they cannot be reconciled. I only know I cannot comprehend why these things still go on, unless it's greed, and confusion. Maybe, you do not care to hear what we have to say. Maybe history has passed us by. I hope not.

For all that we have to offer the rest of humanity is lost, if our voices cannot be heard. But this much I do know, we cannot stop being who we are. We, most of us, cannot turn away from who we come from, where we come from, and what we know to be right. Sometimes, I think that only ensures our very demise. And that is a sad thought, for we are such a part of what surrounds all of mankind. Our loss, is a loss for all men, all women, all children. The ripple effect caused by our loss, will affect all the creator's children. Because no matter what we see, or feel, or think, it is true, We are all related.

/S/ Lawrence
http://www.setaim.com/