Oral history interview with Wes Studi

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University, and I'm interviewing Wes Studi for the Chilocco Alumni Association here at Chilocco Indian School outside of Newkirk. Wes, you're well known to many people for your film and theater work, and we're here today talking about your experiences at Chilocco and serving in the Army during the Vietnam War. Thank you for talking with me.

Studi:I think it's going to be my pleasure. I'm not sure. We'll see, won't we? (Laughter)

Little Thunder: We'll see! Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

Studi: I was born in northeastern Oklahoma somewhere between Tahlequah and Stillwell, Oklahoma, area called Nofire Hollow, if you will. It's near Rocky Mountain and Mankiller Flats area. That's where I was born.

Little Thunder: What did your folks do for a living?

Studi: Initially, what they did was they farmed, is what they did, sort of 1:00subsistence hunting and farming, and then traded for and bought certain staples of whatever you had to buy back in the day. That was essentially it. After that, my mother worked cleaning houses while my dad was a--. He worked, in that day, they called them ranch hands, but he was a ranch worker.

Little Thunder: How about brothers or sisters?

Studi:I had three brothers, now have two brothers. We lost one a number of years ago, but the three of us remain. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have one brother who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and then another brother who is still 2:00near the home compound in Collinsville, Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: What was your exposure to Cherokee language and culture growing up?

Studi: My exposure, if you will, was actually, I was inundated by Cherokee culture and Cherokee language. I didn't learn to speak English until I went to school in Muskogee, Oklahoma, first grade, when I was five and a half years old. I went there, God, it would've been sometime in the ʼ50s, I suppose. I did the first and second grades at a small orphanage, if you will, called Murrow Home, I think 3:00it's called. It's located right near Bacone College outside of Muskogee, because my aunt convinced the family that I needed a better education than what I would receive at Hungry Mountain, which is the little old rural school that I would've attended like rest of the family were it not for my Aunt Jane who said, "He could get a better education if he were to go live at this little Murrow Home and be transported back and forth to public school in Muskogee."

I guess the family agreed, and one day they came and got me and shipped me off to Murrow Home. Within the year, I had learned how to speak English. I don't remember the process. I really don't remember how that came about, but by the end of that year I could speak English. I went home and tried speaking English 4:00there, and no one in the household was having it. "No! We're not speaking English in this house. Who do you think you are?" So I had to relearn Cherokee again. Within that summer, I relearned, and then they sent me back for the second grade to that same place, Murrow Home, and school in Muskogee. That's when I became bilingual. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: How did being at Murrow impact you? What were your feelings about being there?

Studi: You know, I don't really remember a whole lot about it. I was just right at five and a half years old whenever I started there. My most vivid memories of it 5:00all were at one point in time we had, out on the playground outside of our dorms, one of those, what was known then as a monkey bar. It's just a straight bar that you swing on, right? What we would do was put up, like, a old wicker chair, outside furniture kind of, so we could swing that monkey bar, let it swing, and at some point when it was close, we would jump on it, jump on it and go swinging from that old lawn chair of sorts. I was out there one day, and I swung it like that, and then I kind of looked away. At the same time, somebody came along and did something because when I looked back to grab the bar, it had turned, and it hit me right on the head. Bonk! I still have the scar on my head from that experience. I remember that vividly. (Laughter) The process of 6:00learning English, I don't remember all that well. I don't know how it came about, but it came about.

It was kind of a different lifestyle in that I learned that's where--that was my first viewing of television. I also learned that it generates electricity, the screen, those old screens. In the den, they had a television where after school we would come back in. There were times when not everybody went in there to watch TV. One time I came back, and I noticed I was the only one. I could go watch! I had been watching this one program, and I really began to like this 7:00woman on this program. I had seen pictures, images, of these characters kissing sometimes, and I thought, "Wow! This is exciting! I wonder--." I looked all around, snuck up to the television. I got real close when her face came on, and (Pow) I received this shock from the screen like that. (Laughs) Just about at that time, somebody walked in and saw me. Oh, my God! I think I almost got in trouble over that. "What's wrong with you? Trying to kiss a television?" (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's a great story!

Studi: That's one of my memories there. I was introduced to dorm life. It's a different kind of way to live from the family. That's essentially my memories of 8:00Murrow Home, yes.

Little Thunder: How did you land at Chilocco?

Studi: My dad came here. In fact, last night I just met--J. T. is his name. Can't think of his last name right now, but he played music with Andy here back in the day. He came up to me, and he said, "My name is so-and-so, and I used to play with Andy. You know Andy Studi?" I said, "Yeah, he raised me," I told him. "Oh, I'll be darned." He said, "I used to play music with him, played guitar in the band here." It made me think. Oh, and they used to sing a song like, (Sings) "Roly-poly, daddy's little fatty, hungry every minute of the day." He said, 9:00"Yeah! We did that," he said. (Laughter) Along with, (Sings) "Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene. I'll see you in my dreams." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You were, all three of you, musically inclined. Had you started your band yet before coming to Chilocco?

Studi: Oh, no, no. I was totally unmusically inclined--

Little Thunder: That would happen later, okay.

Studi:--at that time. That happened later on.

Little Thunder: That happened later.

Studi: I think a huge influence at that time was that I really enjoyed Sunday mornings when Andy would get up and Mom would be cooking breakfast in there. He'd always grab up his guitar and start doing those old songs, sitting around, 10:00sing some songs, sing songs like that. Mom would say, "The food's getting cold!" (Laughter) You can picture that, right? "Food's getting cold! Get in here!"

Little Thunder: So coming to Chilocco, you knew that Andy'd come here.

Studi: Oh, yeah, and this was in the ʼ50s or, no, just right out of the ʼ50s. During those days, it was financially difficult for the amount of money that he made in order feed four kids. It was difficult. That was actually one consideration, and the better consideration was that he had told lots of stories about what kind of fun he had up here, going to school and with the music and 11:00all of that, having had a lot of great experiences up here. It made me think, "Wow, I'd like to do that." It was at about the time I graduated eighth grade. In those days there was no graduation of eighth grade. You simply moved from eighth to ninth grade. You also had these hazing kind of things that happened, right, in public school. This was in Skiatook, Oklahoma. I was out after, it was sometime in the summer, yeah, sometime in the summer before school started. There was a carload of kids pulled into our driveway, and I think I was on a horse out around the barn or something.

There was five, six guys jump out of there. They were going to come out there 12:00and give me a haircut, a freshman haircut, so they came out there and tried to chase me down on this horse. I kind of knocked a couple of them down just getting away from them. "What in the world?" I had no idea what they were doing. Then the ranch boss shows up, and he starts tooting his horn and runs the guys off because actually we had already talked about the fact that I wasn't going to go to high school there in Skiatook. We had already decided we were--made the application and all of that to come to school here. Like I say, finance was a consideration at that time. It eased off the family, and I had always wanted to kind of get away and eat white-man food, if you will, white bread and stuff like that and see what it was like to have that kind of a meal. (Laughter) I came to 13:00Leup Hall right there and found out.

Little Thunder: So you'd been around a lot of different Native kids at Murrow, but here you were coming to an all-Indian school at Chilocco, too. How did--what were your first impressions when you got here?

Studi: I have to tell you, I was totally amazed at the number of different kinds of Indians that were here. I had no idea, to tell the truth. I mean, at Murrow I was first and second grade. I didn't pay much attention to it. They were all just brown kids like me. Didn't really matter, and we were all speaking English. It really wasn't a consideration of any kind, but when I got here, my God, we had kids from New York State to Washington State to Southern California to 14:00Florida, and all the tribes in between. We numbered, I think, into twelve hundred students or something like that, living here in six homes. Then there was all the staff here, as well. A lot of them were Indians of different kinds, as well, who were instructors and/or matrons or authority figures.

Little Thunder: Going back to food, did you visit the bakery or get to sneak any milk or any of that stuff?

Studi: Actually, the bakery was the plum detail to get here. Everyone would get a detail every, I think it was, every semester. There's four semesters, right? Yeah, every semester you'd have a different detail. You either did halls in your dorm, or you worked at the laundry, or the power plant, or in the kitchen here, 15:00or the bakery. I never got a job at the bakery. Never got a detail over there, but if you worked in the kitchen you had sort of access to the bakery wherein they would bring, like, bread and baked things over, especially rolls and stuff like that. We were able to filch a few if you had the right kind of clothes on, big baggy clothes with bags that you could put under there. (Laughter) So working in Leup Hall in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, and all of the kitchen work, and actually washing pots and pans, huge pots and pans, it had a perk in that you had access to the bakery. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What about instructors that stood out for you at Chilocco?

Studi: Instructors, I think the larger part of my life, my attention wasn't so much on the instructors as it was toward the other students, more or less. A part of being young, I guess. I remember one teacher whose name I can't remember. He had taught sociology, and this would've been probably in the eleventh or twelfth grades, I think. One of the craziest things that I remember about him and his class was that he took us to Winfield, Kansas, which is an 17:00insane asylum at the time. It was a tour for students. My God, it was traumatic, man. I mean, you walked into hallways where extremely disturbed people are in nightgowns, lined up on the floor here and there and just everywhere. This was part of a sociology class. I thought, "My God!" That was practically traumatic. I don't remember much more than just the sights and smells and everything of the place. Then one other instructor that I remember well, his name was Gregory. He was also the commander of the 45th Division's Charlie Company up here at the National Guard.

One day we were assigned reports due on different tribes and our different 18:00peoples all over the world, and--I had drawn either Aztec, Inca, or it was some tribes to the south. I had researched to a pretty good degree, I thought. I think I took a direct quote. If not, I'll be telling you a lie. I think I took a direct quote from some research that I found about how they were described in as being a group of people with some queer rituals and ceremonies and stuff. I took 19:00my report, and rather than just being word-for-word from the research, I called them a group of ceremonially queer people. This was in, like, sometime between '60 and '64, so that was, like, a verboten word, you know. He stopped me right as soon as I said "queer." "You, in the corner." "What?" "Yeah, in the corner on one foot." So I had to stick my nose into the corner there, lift one foot, and stand there for the remainder of the class for using the word "queer" in terms of--. You know what really "queer" means, right? Just kind of different, odd, strange, or whatever. But no, it was used in the more colloquial term in his mind.

Little Thunder: Oh, my goodness.

Studi: Unfortunately, those are the kind of memories I have (Laughter) of teachers.

Little Thunder: What was your area--what were you studying? What did you decide it was kind of your focus here while you were here?

Studi: I have to say that, in my own behalf, is that I could have gone academic, but this is a vocational school. At the eleventh and twelfth grades you could decide if you wanted to go academic and pursue prep classes and stuff, or you could take a vocation. I decided I would take a vocation. I studied dry cleaning. They had some shops down here, and when I got there, I found out that this could be a source of income because as students we were allowed to clean 21:00our own clothes there. I thought, "Well, I don't have that many clothes," so I'd do all my clothes down there. Then I'd have an allotment of other pieces that I could do. I started dry cleaning for other people, and they'd pay me less than what they had to pay to have their stuff cleaned. I had a small side business going there. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Did you volunteer for the National Guard here while you were here?

Studi: I asked my parents when I was seventeen if they would allow me to join the National Guard because they got paid on a monthly basis, and they also got to march around the oval on--. Well, they'd have a meeting, the monthly meeting. 22:00One part of it was marching from the armory, down this way to the oval. I think it was Sunday morning, something like that. You had these guys that would be able to do that, (Says with cadence) "Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Your left, your left, your left, right, left." All these Indian guys'd be kind of really strutting their stuff out there in this starched uniform and everything, "Hey, hey, hey, hey." It was funny! All the girls would come out and watch us. (Laughter) Yeah, so I joined that, and that in a way was the beginning of my military experience. What I did, and I don't recommend this--of course, the opportunity's not even there, I don't think, anymore because of all the volunteer Army. What I did was I joined. At that time, every young male citizen 23:00was obligated to six years to duty to the nation. I was actually unaware of all of that. I just wanted to march on the oval and get paid every month.

In any case, upon graduation we all loaded up and went to Fort Polk, Louisiana, and had six months' training, which was the requirement, basic training, AIT training or advanced [individual] training, and then the remainder of something. Six months that we did, then went home. The requirement is every year you'd do two weeks at some camp or something, and then you attend meetings. I became very slack after two years of doing that. Kind of forgot about it. Then about, at the 24:00time, would've been sometime in '67, I suppose, the Army activated me because they found that I hadn't been doing what I was supposed to do, going to meetings and stuff. In any case, they activated me and sent me to Fort Benning, Georgia. At that point, I began to hear stories about Vietnam mainly because this was, like, a holding company of people who were ready to ETS [expiration -- term of service] out of the Army.

They had all these different kinds of stories I'd listen to, really scary stuff, really funny stuff. It just seemed like, "Wow, Vietnam. A theater war, a theater of combat. I wonder what I'd be like in that." A young male begins to think, "Wow, what would I be like? I could test myself, couldn't I?" I thought, "Okay." 25:00I went up to the office, "I'd like to Vietnam." I had just about a year left of my obligation. They said, "Okay, you're nuts, but okay." So they signed me up, and then within a short while there, I found myself in Vietnam. Served a year over there, and immediately upon completion of my year, and also completed my entire six-year obligation, totally out. It was quite an experience. I talked to some guys who had been there and a lot of my old friends that wound up over there, as well. I never saw anybody I knew over there. I wouldn't give it up. It's an experience in terms of learning about yourself as well as learning about 26:00the human condition and life around the world.

At that point, I had no idea what a third-world country was like. It sort of reminded me of my childhood in a way. It was quite an experience. Then, so, in '69 I got out. It had an effect on me in that for at least two years I did nothing in terms of being constructive for myself or anything else. I didn't feel the need to do a thing. Certainly didn't want to do anything. It was a matter of changing that culture that you live in, and it's sort of an 27:00adrenaline-fueled kind of lifestyle you have in a combat situation like that. Then you come back into supposed--well, you come back into peace, and sometimes it can be more difficult to deal with on a daily basis. I just simply didn't do anything, except drugs maybe, for a couple of years. Then after that, actually, after a number of years, I decided that I could use the GI Bill to do my education and stuff like that. I just sort of hopped along doing that. I'm 28:00getting off--I'm rambling here. You can cut me off anytime. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I was wondering in terms of the--once you said, "I'd like to serve in Vietnam," what was the name of your--what unit did you go over with?

Studi: I went into the 9th Division Alpha Company 3/39th Infantry, so I served the entire tour as a rifleman, 11B10. My MOS [military occupational specialty] was 11B10, grunt. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Were there any other Indian guys in your--.

Studi: No, there was actually--well, there was one guy that I remember. He's a Pima. They call themselves Tohono O'odham instead, around south of Phoenix. He and then a Mexican-American, if you will, we were the three darkest guys except 29:00for the black guys in the company that I was in. I know he and I were the only ones that were identifiably Indian in, jeez, in the whole battalion maybe. That's the only ones I knew of.

Little Thunder: Did you feel like--how did your Chilocco background kind of help prepare you for the military?

Studi: It's institutional, so I think it served me well. I knew how to make a bed. You had to keep your shoes shined, that display, the military display, your shined shoes and your bed that's tightened to the point you can make a quarter 30:00bounce on it or maybe a dime. I had inklings of that here at Chilocco. I mean, I'd learned all of that stuff, how to keep things clean, orderly, and how to keep your trunk packed just the right way, how to dress, how to iron, how to wash your own clothes. I had learned all of that stuff here, and still serves me well. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How about growing up in the country? Did you have any skills that you took from that into the service?

Studi: Growing up in the--well, I was familiar with weapons. All my life, weapons were around everywhere. They were just, you know, stacked up here. It would scare people these days to see how there's a rifle over the door and leaning up 31:00against the closet. Nobody ever shot anybody back in those days. I don't know. Some things changed. At that point in time, I think a living or rural life is a good advantage for somebody going into the military, as an infantryman for sure. I had no idea what it's like to work behind a desk or anything like that.

Little Thunder: Where did you land when you went to Vietnam? Where did you--

Studi: I believe it was Cam Ranh Bay, and from there I went to--or maybe it was Tan Son Nhut and then Cam Ranh Bay. Then we got placed into our permanent duty 32:00stations. The first place I went out of Cam Ranh Bay in the 9th Division was to a place called the French Fort. That's exactly what it was. It was an old French fort. My company was bivouacked there for about maybe three to four weeks, something like that, from the time I got there. Then they had that huge Tet Offensive in May, the top of May. Well, actually it wasn't the huge one. It was a smaller one. They called it the Baby Tet. I think that's when the VC and NVA kind of overran a large part of Chinatown in what was then Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City. Our company was there--we were the brunt of it. The 9th Division's 33:00companies were the brunt of their assault on Chinatown.

The bad part of all that was that I think most of the Chinese people that were segmented in that area were very friendly to the troops, but what happened was I think the VC got in there and that's where they were shooting from. I mean that's why those were the areas that they were using the Chinese population as kind of a barrier. So they're being able to attack us through that. Unfortunately, the 9th Division's response was to destroy that part of town. I'm not totally sure, but I think the 9th Division was censured for that part of the war in that they really devastated the entire segment of the--. I think they 34:00were decommissioned or something like that after the fighting was over. As I understand it, they're being recommissioned again or something like that. Maybe they need more troops somewhere in the world.

Little Thunder: What did you think of your officers in Vietnam?

Studi: I think that we had to teach them very quickly once they got there. Most of them were, the officers, were almost straight out of OCS, Officer Candidate School. While they had plenty of theory, we almost always were actually attached to and followed what the first sergeant said. He had to work with this first sergeant or platoon sergeant. The platoon sergeant, who was an enlisted man, 35:00actually is the guy that we all adhere to. We just sort of salute the officer. The smart ones would begin to learn from our platoon sergeants and know how to do things because he's the one, the officer is the one, your platoon leader and stuff, that communicates with headquarters. He has to make the decisions, but if he's smart he's going to run them by the platoon sergeant first because a platoon sergeant knows the men, he knows the terrain. The second lieutenants that came in to lead us, if you will, had to learn quickly to adjust to the way that we did things, and then he was responsible for us, but the person that we 36:00as troops followed, of course, was almost always the enlisted guy.

Little Thunder: How soon did you see combat after you got there?

Studi: It was very quickly. I landed there sometime in late April of '68, and that's after the big offensive in January, the Tet Offensive, and then the baby one is the one that's where I began to see. That was urban warfare, the worst kind in the world. The rest of the time was spent out in the paddies, which is certainly not quite as dangerous. It's dangerous in its own way because you get ambushed out there or you have what were called booby traps and that kind of thing out there. It's not nearly as surprisingly dangerous as urban warfare, 37:00building to building, that kind of thing. We started off with a bang and kind of edged out in more rural stuff. We went as far out as the Plain of Reeds over there in--I think we went into Cambodia a few times. Weren't supposed to, but what can you tell? How can you tell? It's the Plain of Reeds. (Laughter) It's nothing but reeds as far as you can see, and there's water that high.

Little Thunder: What was the closest call you had?

Studi: My closest call actually was from friendly fire. Friendly fire. One evening we set up next to a little village that had a stream running right next to it. Right across the way, there was a hog pen and several hogs in there. We set up 38:00there to go to sleep for the night. I think I was either first or second, something like that, first or second for night watch. That's when we had those nightlights that were about this big around and about that long. That's what you watched with because it's so dark. You get a little bit of this--you see green things, vision, green images out there through this thing. On my watch, those hogs started running around over there like something's happening. "Oh, gee," so I started watching like that, but I wasn't quick enough. After I heard that, we got incoming fire. They had gotten there in around those, and they started 39:00firing on us like that.

We fired back, and that wasn't really that bad. The fight went on for four or five minutes or something like--. It wasn't that long. Then they called in an air strike, you know, the big choppers, the big gunships. They got there pretty quickly. There was a fire fight and then there was a lull, and they started raining down, what, I think .50 calibers. We really had no cover from the top. I mean, everything just (Shoop, Shoop, Shoop) we started hearing rounds coming in from the gunship, which didn't get quite the right coordinates, so they were 40:00firing down on us. Tracers every, I don't know however many, but every once in a while you'd see tracers coming down around left and right. What do you do? You move left; you move right. (Laughs) It's an awful place to be, (Zip, Zip, Zip) things coming down like that.

I suppose that would be my closest call, but the good thing about it was that they hit us with a rocket during that same attack. They hit us with a rocket, and it hit this adobe wall. It was a mud wall, actually. It hit that, and it sprayed everything, not only the shrapnel but the mud and mud cakes all over. I'm pretty sure what I got hit with was a piece of dirt that hit my knee and 41:00knocked my kneecap off to one side. It didn't cut anything, so that's why I think it was the dirt. It knocked my kneecap off to one side. There were several other people got hit that night either by the enemy or by friendly fire. Friendly fire, that's quite a term. In any case, because of my knee, I got dusted off. Whee! I got dusted off.

I have to tell you, just between you and me and for the rest of the world to see, that was an amazing trip for me because afterwards they came in to look for the wounded, the medics did. They saw my knee, and they said, "Yeah, we got to dust you off." They put me on a carrier and put me into the helicopter like 42:00that, and they said, "You're in pain." They gave me a shot of morphine and lifted off. Oh, my God, that was the most beautiful night of my life. (Laughter) Here I have my kneecap is halfway around my knee, but I'm laying there, and I can look up, and I can see the universe of stars out there. I'm affected by morphine, feel no pain, and I'm rising above all of that havoc, all of that stuff going on down on the earth. It was like escaping to heaven! (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So did you have to have surgery? And then how long were you--

Studi: What did they do? No, we got there--I think they just knocked it back over and then taped it up. I stumbled around for maybe a week or two, something like 43:00that. I had easy duty for a little while there. Then they said, "It's okay now." Sent me back out on the line.

Little Thunder: Did your Tohono O'odham friend make it out? Do you know?

Studi: No. The sad part is, the day that he died, we were in a little village called Rachquir. It was an actual little town made up of board sidewalks and what would seem to look like a movie set kind of a town or something. It was totally used, functional. It was a little village. One day, I think we were down; we weren't doing anything. I went walking down the sidewalk next to the 44:00stores and stuff, and I saw him up ahead. He had strapped on his .45, and he was kind of walking around down there. I said, "Hmm." Something started the conversation. This was kind of morning or midday thereabouts. He had been drinking. He was (Whistles). He was out of it. He looked at me, and he said--he didn't even hear what I said. He looked at me and said, "Remember. Remember the golden key." "Okay." I went on about my business, and about thirty minutes later 45:00he had taken his .45 and blew his head off.

Little Thunder: I'm sorry.

Studi: Yeah, that was pretty bad. I never could understand why. He didn't talk a lot, either, so I didn't really know him in terms of beyond--.

Little Thunder: Do you stay in touch with some of your veteran friends, or have you--. I don't know if you've spent much time with veterans organizations since the--.

Studi: Not with the organizations, no, but I do stay in touch with two guys on a fairly regular basis. One works and lives in Las Vegas, Louie, and then another 46:00one back east used to be in Rhode Island, but now he's in Connecticut, not far. He was from Rhode Island. When I first got out, I was living in Tulsa for a number of months. Decided I wanted to take a trip, and where I would go would be back east. I got names of some of my guys that I was over there with, and I found in the local paper an advertisement for, "Driver needed. Will take car from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to--." I think it was Baltimore. Perfect! I applied. Went to some house, and they said, "You got a driver's license? Can you drive? Can 47:00you make it to Baltimore in so many days?" "Yeah." "Okay. Don't bother the boxes in the back." "Okay." Drove off to Baltimore. From there I went to New York and found one guy that was over there with us and hung around for a week or so. Then I went up to Rhode Island, Providence. That's where he lived.

Portuguese, he's a Portuguese guy, and they have just a little different idea, at least at that time, he and his family had a little different idea of family structure, extended family, you know. They were very welcoming of me and asked me if I, you know, "We can give you this room here. Stay here as long as you want. You're Wally's friend." Then after a while, just living there more or 48:00less, doing what the family does, learning Providence and urban living like that, he said, "Do you want to get a job?" "Yeah, sure." He had friends in the business of yarn. He helped me get a job working in a yarn factory. (Laughs) I did that for about a month or so, and I finally decided, "Well, okay, this is fun, but I think I'd rather go home." I got to live in Providence for a while and actually even work and make money (Laughter) with my buddies. Those two I've kept up with. Through them, I hear about other guys, at least maybe half a dozen.

Little Thunder: So you haven't made a lot of Chilocco reunions, but the ones that 49:00you make, why are they important to you?

Studi: That's a good question, Julie. I really don't know why they're important. They're enjoyable in different ways. You come to see the place, and it stirs up old memories of this and that. A lot of the buildings have gone and/or almost ruined, but the memories remain just as if it were yesterday or even right now. A lot of the things changed, but it was a huge part of my life. Whether I admit it or not, I think I was able to learn some good lessons here. I learned some 50:00skills. I learned how to deal with people in a certain way. Learned a lot about the outside world. It was a good experience. It had its bad moments, but that's life, right? Not everything works out well on a daily basis, hourly basis. Good times, bad times. I tend to remember about this place just as much as the good times as the bad. It's a part of my life, so it has to be important, right? (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Right.

Studi:I can't define it.

Little Thunder: What would you like people to know or remember about either Chilocco or about wartime service, what it's like?

Studi: About wartime service, I think that one day we should all learn that it is the absolute last resort to any kind of--. It's not an answer to anything really when it comes down to it. When you actually experience the horrors, the vagaries of a combat situation, I think you would find it very hard to say that war is an 52:00option. I'd really like for people to learn that it's not an option anymore. I don't think that it does any good and it leaves a lot of people broken one way or another, either physically, mentally. I'd like people to know that war is a bad, bad thing and not to engage in it anymore, but I have my doubts. As far as Indian education goes, I'm glad that the tribes and pueblos and the indigenous people have begun to take over and run their own schools in a better way to help prepare people to live in the modern world.

Little Thunder: Thank you for time, and thank you for your service, too.

Studi: My pleasure.

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