Oral history interview with T. J. Burris

Little Thunder My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. I'm interviewing T. J. Burris for the Chilocco Alumni Association here at Chilocco Indian School outside of Newkirk, Oklahoma. Mr. Burris, you served with the Navy and the National Guard. You graduated from Chilocco and saw duty in Korea. I appreciate your talking to me today.

Burris Thank you.

Little Thunder Where did you grow up; where were you born?

Burris I was born in a place called San Boice, Quinton, Oklahoma. It's down east of here. I was raised in a little town over there they called Riesel. None of them was towns; they was just little community. I went to public school there for a short while. My mother passed away. They sent us to the Indian schools at Jones Academy. I graduated from Jones Academy to the eighth grade. Then I came 1:00from there to Chilocco for four years.

Little Thunder Did you have brothers or sisters?

Burris I did. They came here, too.

Little Thunder Was anybody--where were you in the lineup? Were you a middle child or--

Burris Pretty close to the middle.

Little Thunder When you arrived at Chilocco, did you have any brothers or sisters already here?

Burris Two.

Little Thunder Two, okay. That make things a little easier?

Burris Kind of. You know, one of them was an employee here after the first year.

Little Thunder Okay.

Burris He went to work here as an employee, and the other was just a grade ahead of me in school, see. When the Korean War came on, why, he was in the National Guard. I was, too. They mobilized him and sent him to the service and discharged 2:00me. That was about all that took place here until I graduated from this school.

Little Thunder Was it hard to make the adjustment from Jones Academy to Chilocco?

Burris No, not at all. It was just the same. You're away from home, and that's the way it goes.

Little Thunder Right. Why did you join the National Guard here?

Burris For the money. (Laughter)

Little Thunder Who were some of the instructors you had at Chilocco that stood out for you?

Burris My boss was a--I took blacksmithing and welding. My boss was named Parker, was a very good instructor. I had a agriculture teacher by the name of Deb Victor who was very good. The other guy that I had was in the agricultural 3:00deal. His name was Shorty [Paul] Osborne. He was in the dairy barn.

Little Thunder What were a couple of the things you had detail on when you were here?

Burris Oh, we did almost all kinds of repair work for the school. Those down there, there's a big set of bleachers down there. We built them. Let's see. We built all of the stainless steel cooking utensils and stuff like that over in the kitchen.

Little Thunder In the kitchen, oh, so you were welding--

Burris Yeah.

Little Thunder --all of those big--wow!

Burris We were learning the new stuff, the latest stuff. They didn't have that when we was learning it.

Little ThunderRight.

Burris The inspector, or our boss, he was kind of the same way. He was learning right with us, you know. (Laughter)

Little Thunder You were with the National Guard while you were here. You signed up for that. When you rejoined, were you called up for Korea?

Burris Yeah, I was called in Roseburg, Oregon.

Little Thunder You were already in Oregon at that point.

Burris I had moved to Oregon. My dad had took us out there. I was living in Coquille. I didn't want to go into the Army, so I went and signed up for the Navy. I went into the Navy there.

Little Thunder How did you like the Navy?

Burris I loved it. I really liked the Navy. I liked to go on the ships and 5:00stuff. It was quite--.

Little Thunder Was it out of Washington State that you served in the Navy or--

Burris No, I was out of Oregon, went through Oregon.

Little Thunder On the Columbia or--

Burris No, no, no, no, I went overseas.

Little Thunder After you're overseas, then you're--

Burris I went through my training at San Diego--

Little Thunder Okay, that is what I was wondering.

Burris --the boot training in San Diego.

Little Thunder Training in San Diego, California.

Burris Yeah. Then I was shipped overseas on a supply ship, refrigeration supply ship. We were taking food to the ships, and everybody that needed food during the war time. We was on this supply ship. It was called the [USS] Pictor (AF-54). We would get in between these protective ships because 6:00we had so much supplies on, that they protected us.

Little Thunder You had an escort when you were taking--.

Burris Right.

Little Thunder Okay.

Burris The ships would come alongside, and we would send cables across and supply those ships with food and stuff on each side of us as we were going in the water.

Little Thunder Wow. Did you serve in the Navy the entire time, then, that you were--Burris Yeah, I did.

Little Thunder --in Korea? Okay. What were--had you ever been on the water before like that, that long?

Burris No, I had never been on the water, except these little olʽ lakes around here. I'd never been in the ocean. I didn't even know what it was. I'd been on 7:00the beach after we moved there. I knew what the beach was, but I never knew what the ocean was. I learned.

Little Thunder What did you like about the Navy service?

Burris Oh, just going to different parts of the country and the ports and stuff, learning different parts of the country. It was pretty good. We went to a lot of different countries. After the war--I actually was in the Korean deal for a long time. Even after the war, we would go up there and patrol. I was on another ship for that.

Little Thunder I see.

Burris That little ship we was on did supplies. Like, we'd go into Samoa and 8:00Enewetak [Atoll], and all those places. The one thing we had to do was when they were making the H-Bomb, we had to patrol the waters out of Enewetak and the Marshall Islands because the Japanese fishermen, you could be on one end and run them out, go down, and by the time you got back up there, they'd be back in there again. When they did explode that bomb, it sunk those islands that were there. There were two of them; they sunk them.

Little Thunder When they were doing the experimental tests on the H-Bomb?

Burris Yeah.

Little Thunder Wow. You were trying to keep them safe, keep everybody out of that area.

Burris Oh, yeah, we had to keep them out of there.

Little Thunder Wow. Did you have any close calls when you were working on that 9:00supply ship during the Korean War?

Burris Well, they didn't hit us, but they hit the ships that were next to us, right alongside of us. There was a destroyer on this side, and a big shell hit him on the fantail. An Aircraft carrier was on this side, but there was no damage to him. He wasn't on the side that the shore battery was on.

Little Thunder Right.

Burris It was a big olʽ hole in the fantail of the ship where the shore battery had hit that destroyer.

Little Thunder Was it man overboard and you were getting men, or was it sinking?

Burris No, no, it didn't sink.

Little Thunder Okay, it just made a big hole.

Burris They just put a big olʽ patch on it, and actually that was my job. I was 10:00a metalsmith. I was a welder and a metalsmith. I did that kind of work in the Navy. That's what I did. As I went up through the ranks, I helped teach welding and stuff like that. The thing that really helped me was right here at this school. I took blacksmith and welding. Okay, when I went there, I was as good a welder or better than even some of those people that were instructing, yeah.

Little Thunder Now, in the Navy, I don't know if they probably have an equivalent of AIT [advanced individual training]. Is it AIT? You know, you do basic, and then you get this special instruction. In the Navy you were just ready to go with those skills that you had, those welding skills?

Burris The biggest majority of them, yeah. Yeah, they sent me to San Diego for a 11:00few of the touch-up schools, but they never amounted to nothing.

Little Thunder Did you ever have to do any repairs while you were out on the water?

Burris Big time. (Laughs)

Little Thunder What were some of the more memorable ones?

Burris Whatever ones would come alongside. After we got through with that spy ship, they sent me on a repair ship.

Little Thunder Oh, okay.

Burris The repair ship, we would repair the other ships that came alongside, see. If we were in the harbor, they'd come in the harbor. If we were alongside, they'd come in more to the side of us. It depends on how much damage was done to it, you know, and what we had to do to it. Most of the ones that we repaired were, like, destroyers and heavy cruisers. They were the ones that got the biggest damage, see.

Little Thunder How did it work for the Navy in terms of did you get shore time, leave time? How did that work?

Burris Oh, yeah, thirty days out of the year.

Little Thunder Okay.

Burris I was overseas. Out of four years, I was overseas three years. I was over there almost all the time. I didn't mind it. I liked it. We'd go, like, to Japan and the Philippines, and China. It was good.

Little Thunder Got to see these different countries.

Burris Yeah, Australia, we went to Australia.

Little Thunder Oh, wow!

Burris That was a good loop there.

Little Thunder Yeah. What did you do when you got back?

Burris When I got back?

Little Thunder Stateside?

Burris I got out of the Navy. I traveled around a little bit. I went to work in 13:00the aircraft plant there for Boeing in Seattle, and I was a--what do they call them welders that you have to be precise? In other words, you have to really be doing that aircraft stuff. I worked there until I got laid off. We lost a contract, and they laid everybody off. Then I went back to Oklahoma. My dad was living in Oklahoma at that time. That was here. I came back to there where I was born at. We were on that ranch. There was a ranch there. We worked on that ranch for a while. Then I left there and went down into Corpus Christi, Texas. I was working down there for a big dump truck outfit. I was playing music at the same time.

Little Thunder Okay!

Burris I played music, you know, in the bars and stuff like that. I worked--.

Little Thunder What instrument did you play?

Burris The guitar.

Little ThunderOkay.

Burris I got it in my car right now because my folks make me play it down there. When I go down there, I have to play. (Laughter)

Little Thunder That's great!

Burris Then I went from Corpus Christi to Long Beach. I got a job at the Naval shipyard there as a welding instructor. I was there for, oh, probably five years, six years. They'd come out with these nuclear ships with the reactors in them. They brung one in there, and it was leaking. I had to cut the reactor out 15:00of it. They give you what they call a dosimeter. It's a color, and if you get too much radiation it will turn another color. Mine did, see. I worked there awhile. They transferred me out to Tuba City, Arizona, and I went to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs out there. I got hurt out there on a emergency rescue.

Little Thunder What were you doing with the BIA? Were you welding?

Burris Yeah, I was a steamfitter.

Little Thunder Okay.

Burris I was taking care of the school, the heating system, air conditioning, and all that stuff. I did. When I got hurt, they retired me, see. The government retired me, and I'm still retired. (Laughs)

Little Thunder Wow, and an amazing career. Were there very many Native American 16:00Navy people when you were in the Navy?

Burris Not a whole lot. There was some but not too many. I had two or three good friends that were Native American. Most of them were Mexican people and Filipinos. A lot of Filipinos worked there, and the white people. That was about it.

Little Thunder How do you think your--besides the welding part, what did you take from Chilocco that kind of helped you with the military life?

Burris Welding.

Little Thunder Just the welding?

Burris Yeah. Well, I had a education on top of that. You seen that guy I just was talking to a while ago? He was working for me at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I went to school with him right here.

Little Thunder You guys, you kept your contacts, your Chilocco contacts, too?

Burris Well, whenever he came there, I was in charge of the jobs there, those schools there at Tuba City. When he came there, he knew me, and he went to work for me there.

Little Thunder Right, right. Do you come to a lot of the Chilocco reunions?

Burris A lot, yeah.

Little Thunder Why is that important to you?

Burris Well, I've got a lot of people that I know. My family lives back here, as well, so I come and get to visit with them at the same time. We're going to have a reunion in September, so I'll be coming back again for Labor Day.

Little Thunder Oh, great!

Burris They'll have a big deal at the Indian headquarters in Talihina, the Choctaw Indians, and I'll be in some of that.

Little Thunder Good! Will you play guitar? Will you play your guitar at all?

Burris You know, I might. I'm not for sure. I might. I'll have to wait and see. I play a lot right now in Oregon. We have a jam there every Friday night. Sometimes it's at my house, and sometimes it's at another person's, or they have it at this hall. I play at all those places.

Little Thunder What kind of music?

Burris Country music. Other than that, that's just about how my life's been running.

Little Thunder Well, can you talk a little bit about the role of Native veterans in Indian Country?

Burris The what?

Little Thunder The role that Native veterans play, the role that Native veterans 19:00play in Indian Country, their importance?

Burris You know, I haven't been involved with that in my country back here. I just was picked up the other day by the Indian department, and they want me to give them an interview on some of the stuff that I've done over the years. I'll probably do that when I come back the next time. I haven't really been involved with the Indians. All of my work has been with non-Indians except when I worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at those schools. Those were kids. They wasn't grownups. These kids were all grade school kids.

Little Thunder Have you been involved with veteran associations up there, 20:00non-Indian veteran associations in Oregon?

Burris I go to the hospitals and stuff like that, yeah. I'm a disabled veteran.

Little Thunder What would you like people to know or remember about Chilocco?

Burris The most important thing that I would say about Chilocco is that I don't know whether they can remember it now or not because the school is shut down, but if they had a chance to go to it, now even, and get the education, take it. Man, I tell you it's helped me through life to no end. I can get a job anywhere I want to just by being able to go to school here. You not only learn a little 21:00bit of a trade, you learn the tricks of the trade, a little bit about everything, you know, how to do all kinds of work. Like, down there at the shop here, I was a blacksmith and welder. I could just walk out there and pick up a horse's foot and put a set of shoes on him, you know.

Little Thunder Not many people can still do that!

Burris No, that's a farrier. I was qualified as a farrier, yeah. I do that once in a while now. I got some friends out there, and they'll ask me if I'll shoe their horses for them. (Laughter) I don't like to. I'm getting too old for that. I'm eighty-two years old. It makes a lot of difference trying to handle a horse.

Little Thunder What would you like people to know or remember about the Navy?

Burris You know, I don't know a lot about it now as I did then. Then, it was 22:00very educational. You could go in there, and if you really wanted to make something out of yourself, you could take certain trades right in the Navy, and make yourself a living when you came home, especially electronics. It was really big in electronics, see. Well, it was like if you got on a repair ship, it was just about all kinds of work. Even like at home, you would do the same thing there, I mean, whatever you needed to know to repair. You had to take advantage 23:00of it in order to be able to do it. You couldn't just float your way through it and want to go out on the beach every night (Laughter) and not do that. It was really a remarkable thing, I think. When I come out--well, I actually made First Class--

Little Thunder Okay.

Burris --and that's a pretty good rate. I was Second Class; I was Second Class for a long time. I took the test for the First Class, and I had from, like, 24:00March to September before they would give me the rate. They prorated us. I got out in March, but I had already made the rate, see. They weren't going to give it to me until September. They were hoping I would extend the ship-over.

Little Thunder I see.

Burris I came home.

Little Thunder You were ready.

Burris Yeah.

Little ThunderI forgot to ask you about weather. Did you have any scary times onboard the ship?

Burris I rode out a typhoon in the Philippines. What's the name of that big town there in the Philippines?

Little Thunder Manila?

Burris Yeah. I was getting transferred from one ship in Civic Bay to another 25:00ship in Japan. They send me to Cavite City in Manila to catch a plane out of there to go to Japan. Well, while we was there, we was staying on what they call an APL, which is kind of a barracks deal, only it floats. That typhoon come in while we was there, and it blew it out into the bay. We had every anchor and everything else that was on that thing dropped in the water trying to hold us. We kept it upright and never let it get tipped over, so we rode it out, rode that typhoon out.

Little Thunder How long did it last?

Burris About three days, four, yeah. The hard part was about that long. It 26:00lasted about two weeks. It didn't blow hard, but about three or four days was really rough.

Little Thunder What's it like being in a typhoon? Is it the wind and the water blowing? Both?

Burris The wind and the water, both. Boy, it comes in sheets of big water and wind blowing. You got to really have the pumps working, or it'll flood the ship and sink it, get too much water in it. That was a kind of an exciting time. (Laughter)

Little Thunder For sure!

Burris I was glad when we got back to the shore over there. They put me on a plane and sent me. Then we rode the plane from there to Okinawa, and on the way we hit these updrafts and downdrafts really bad. They had these bucket seats 27:00that you sat in, not regular seats. They're just little bucket seats. I was sitting in one back there with these guys. These guys were all soldiers and stuff, and, boy, them guys were puking in their hats and everything else. The guy, the airman that was on the plane, he come back there, and he said, "Do you want to come up here and sit in the front with us?" (Laughter) "Might smell a little better." He'd seen that I could handle that rough seas. I said, "Yeah," so I went up there. That was an exciting run, too, boy. I never seen a plane--it would drop down just like there wasn't no bottom, and all of a sudden it'd hit and just shake. That was bad, and we landed in Okinawa. (Laughter)

Little Thunder Yeah, it's amazing how being on the sea had helped condition you for that.

Burris Oh, yeah, it didn't bother me. I didn't get seasick or airsick or nothing, but, boy, them guys they were sick. They'd have their hats and puking in their hats and everything. They brought them sacks, and some of them filled the sack up. (Laughter) Stink! Boy, did it stink back there.

Little Thunder Well, is there anything else we should talk about that we haven't covered?

Burris Oh, I don't know. I think that's enough. (Laughs) I just go over one thing and another, it seemed like. Routine, you know. Out there now in Oregon, I got log trucks out there. I own log trucks.

Little Thunder Oh, okay.

Burris Me and my brother, we live right next door to one another, and we help each other all the time. My son, he's pretty good out there, too. He's a logger. I really don't do a lot anymore. I still drive once in a while but not very much. My brother drives the trucks, and my son drives them, and his wife drives them. I don't do--I stay in the shop all the time. I fix stuff if it breaks down or something like that. That's about it.

Little Thunder Using your welding.

Burris Yeah, it is handy.

Little Thunder Do you miss the water? Do you try to get out on the...

Burris You know, I never did. When I got off of there, I was through with it.

Little Thunder You were done.

Burris Yeah, I worked there in Long Beach, and I used to ride out to Catalina 30:00Island a lot on the little boats that a friend of mine had. I liked that, but I never ever wanted to get out there in the big water anymore.

Little Thunder Not even on a cruise ship, huh?

Burris No. I could've went on a cruise ship. I could've went on two or three of them. I just didn't want to go. I wasn't afraid or nothing. I just didn't want to go.

Little Thunder I understand. Well, thank you for your service, Mr. Burris, and thank you for sharing your story today.

Burris You're welcome!

------- End of interview -------