Oral history interview with Frank Kekahbah

MilliganSo this is Sarah Milligan with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. Today's date is May 27, 2016. I'm at the Chilocco Indian School annual reunion homecoming, and we are interviewing Chilocco military veterans this weekend. I am here with Frank Kekahbah, and we are going to talk about his experience at Chilocco and his military service. There, that's done. I like to start with just a little bit of background. Can you just tell me a little bit about yourself, like where are you from, where were you born, maybe a little bit about your family?

KekahbahOkay, I was born on June 4, 1936, at the Pawnee Indian Hospital in Pawnee, Oklahoma. I'm from two tribes. My father was Kaw, (it was also known 1:00Kansa Indian; the state of Kansas was named after that small tribe) and Potawatomi. My mother was Potawatomi from Kansas. I was raised in Kansas and Oklahoma prior to coming to Chilocco. We moved to Oklahoma, and I have to do this by grades. I think it was around the third grade or fourth grade that I recall us moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, from Mayetta, Kansas, which is the Potawatomi reservation up there.

MilliganWhat made the shift? What was the deciding factor to move from there to Tulsa?

KekahbahYou know, I don't know. To this day I don't know. I have to assume it was because of the job availability of my father. -- There was six of us children, so he had to find some employment somewhere.

MilliganSo that was in the third grade and you moved to Tulsa. What were your parents' names? I'm sorry.

KekahbahMy father's name was Francis, and my mother's name was Angeline.

MilliganAngeline, that's very pretty. Okay, so when did you come to Chilocco, then?

KekahbahI came to Chilocco in the fall of 1950. I came here. They said, "If you 3:00want to play football you have to come here early," so I came about a week early than what the normal arrival of the kids here, students here at school. I arrived up a week early. My uncle, and aunt, and my mom brought me up here. I stayed here at Chilocco for four years.

MilliganSo did you come essentially at the beginning of your high school to Chilocco, then?

KekahbahYes, ninth grade, and graduated twelfth grade.

MilliganYeah. What was the deciding factor for Chilocco for you?

KekahbahI think it was more of helping the family out by not having another mouth to feed. Also, the grade school teachers that I had recommended that I 4:00attend Chilocco because of other students that they taught. Once they finished the eighth grade there, grade school, then high school they came to this school, Chilocco. They recommended I go. My mother, who attended and graduated from Haskell Indian School, she was familiar with this type of environment, so that's why I came up.

MilliganOh, I see. Did your other siblings come?

KekahbahNo.

MilliganJust you?

KekahbahI was the only one. I had a brother that came up, a younger brother that came up for about a semester, and he just didn't like it here. He didn't finish here.

MilliganI'm curious, because mentioning that your teacher was probably part of the leading point to get you here, did you go to a school that was primarily Indian, then, a grade school?

KekahbahYes. When I said I was probably in the third grade, it was just a regular public school. Then when we moved to Pawhuska, we lived in a Indian village called Indian Camp. All the kids at Indian Camp, grade school levels, went to Indian Camp school. Was there Indians that went to this? It was open to 6:00anyone (it was a county school) that was in the county, but primarily they came from Indian Camp.

MilliganOkay, that makes sense. So I'm curious. When you came to Chilocco, you mentioned that your brother decided not to stay more than a semester, and you obviously stayed for much longer than that. What was your experience when you first came to Chilocco? Do you remember?

KekahbahComing to Chilocco, well, it was the first time that I had been away from home, so it was kind scary. I was fourteen then. It was kind of scary. Probably another deciding factor, I had a cousin that we both came up together, 7:00and this guy chickened out. He lasted, it wasn't no more than a week. There I was; he left. Left me here all by my little self. Yeah, it was kind of scary, and, of course, I became lonesome. I stayed in a room that was four of us to a room, so I got to know four of these guys pretty well. All four of us stayed all four years at Chilocco. I don't know if there was first four kids that stayed in a room did that or not, but it was my experience. The thing about it was that--all of us were from Oklahoma except one. He was from Kansas. We weren't 8:00from the same city. We were just parts of Oklahoma. The thing that we all had in common was that we were all Indian.

MilliganDid you all have--what were your different tribal affiliations? Were you sort of the similar background, or was there different--

KekahbahLet me think. Okay, one was Potawatomi from Kansas, like I was, so it was two Potawatomis together. There was a couple of words that my mom used to use that was Potawatomi words that I said to somebody else, and he picked up on it. Said, "Hey!" One of those kind of deals. Let's see. The two of us were Potawatomi, one kid was Taylet Morgan. He was kind of light-colored, so he was probably Cherokee, but I don't know. Virgil Yeahquo was Kiowa.

MilliganOkay. I think that's always--it's been interesting to talk to other Chilocco alum, sort of people that were more comfortable or less comfortable and if they sort of had tribal background [similarities] or not. It's interesting. The language, the fact that you knew a couple of Potawatomi words that your roommate picked up on is kind of cool.

KekahbahKind of like this lady was saying, probably wasn't the best words in the language, (Laughter) but it was common. It was common words that the Potawatomis used to, descriptive.

MilliganSince we're primarily here to talk about the military side of things, not that we can't talk about other things, I'm curious about, from what I understand of Chilocco, parts of it seemed to be run in the militaristic 10:00fashion, and there was this National Guard unit. Do you have memories of how they, sort of what the protocol was and if for a day-to-day. Like, did you have bed checks, and were there--did you have to do sort of group activities, or did you feel like there was sort of this military slant to how they kept you together?

KekahbahYes.

MilliganI'm just curious.

KekahbahYes, they had conscription then, which the federal government said everyone, males, eighteen or over, had to register for the draft. When I was here at Chilocco they had a National Guard Company here; 279th / 45th Infantry 11:00Division, I think, was Charlie Company. That was kind of the thing to do was to join this National Guard outfit. (Laughs) There's another name for it, but I'm not going to say. (Laughter) National Guard outfit, I joined, and I was a member probably for about three months while I was attending school here. I left school and joined the Army, so I had spent time in the National Guard before joining the Army.

MilliganI see.

KekahbahThe deciding factor for joining the Army was primarily there wasn't any jobs after you finished high school even though this is a trade school. The little town where I came from, there just wasn't any jobs. Two years in the military was staring you in the face, so I said, "Hey, why not?" You just joined 12:00the Army because there wasn't any money coming in and this is one way to do it. It actually served two purposes: the money thing and fulfilling this obligation to the government.

MilliganWas it pretty common for the men in Chilocco to join the National Guard unit here on campus?

KekahbahI would say probably--I'm thinking our company at the time was probably about sixty or seventy men total, boys total, in that outfit. Out of how many boys, four hundred in school? About four hundred, maybe two hundred. I think our whole school population at the time was about four hundred, not counting the 13:00small Navajo kids, not counting the Navajo program. It probably had another four hundred.

MilliganI wonder why you don't include that in your number. Were they separated, Navajos?

KekahbahOh, of course. The separation was because of the grade level. These guys were, you know, this size, little guys, man.

MilliganThat makes sense. So was it a hard shift when you did decide to start doing the National Guard? It seems like--it was right before you left, right, so it was three months before you graduated you joined the National Guard?

KekahbahThere or about.

MilliganSo I wonder if up until that point, were there things in the school that led you, besides sort of the US draft going on, were there things in the school 14:00that led you to sort of move towards that military slant? No?

KekahbahThe only thing that moved me toward that was they paid you, was the pay. You didn't have any money coming in. Unless you worked for someone on the weekends, you just didn't make any money, or if you received money from home. You didn't have any money. You were broke all the time.

MilliganWould it have been an option for you to join earlier than you did?

KekahbahI don't know, but I'm thinking age would've had something to do with it. There they were, the National Guard was taking seventeen-year-olds. Maybe that was probably--they couldn't go sixteen. They probably would have if they could have, but seventeen was probably the youngest they could take. I qualified 15:00age-wise, if that was the case.

MilliganGot it. So you left Chilocco, and you joined the US Army, correct?

KekahbahYes.

MilliganTell me a little bit about that. What was the process, and where did you go?

KekahbahUpon moving back home, so to speak--I mean, here you were, moving back home with your mom. There wasn't any other place to go, you know? There was no jobs so I ended up--. One day I was walking downtown on the street, and there was this little billboard. They were about like this and about this high, and 16:00they were on a little platform-type thing. They was in front of a recruiting station, US Army recruiting station. I looked at that billboard, and here's this guy all decked out. Boy, this guy looked neat. Had a nice, pressed uniform on. Had a blue scarf flowing, you know, girl on his arm. In the background is parachutes coming down, and he had this hat on with a little patch on it. In other words, I didn't want to join the Army and be an Army slob.

This guy really looked neat, man! I mean, hey! Boy! I said, "This is what I want." I walked upstairs, joined the Army. Three weeks later I was headed toward 17:00the induction center in Oklahoma City. You took a bus out of Pawhuska, and they paid for it, man. Hey, that's cool. Took a bus out of Pawhuska to Ponca City. From there, there was another bus that took you down to Oklahoma City where you did your physical, and you had to take mental tests a physical test. You did all that there in civilian clothes. Then once you passed and you took the oath, you were in. From there they sent you to Texas to receive your military uniforms and things like that. From then on, you was in the Army.

MilliganSo where did you end up going to boot camp, then?

KekahbahI went to--I, as a kid, other than Kansas never was anywhere. They sent 18:00me to Fort Ord, California. Can you imagine this Oklahoma kid going to California? My goodness sakes, man. We got there in--flew us there! First time I'd ever been on an airplane. It was raining. It was storming. It wasn't one of these nice airplanes. I mean it was one of these little olʽ military airplanes that they converted, some kind of civilian airplane. I mean, them windows were about this big. It was raining, and it was storming when this little olʽ airplane flew in. (Laughs) That didn't make me feel much better. You know what I mean?

MilliganDid that make you want to fly again after that, your first trip?

KekahbahYeah, fly back. I went to Fort Ord, California, and stayed there. The 19:00Army breaks down your training, your basic training, into two eight-week extensions. I took my first, what they call, first eight weeks in Fort Ord, California. My second eight, I went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was traveling a lot. Government expense, hey. They feed you. They give you these vouchers, and only one restaurant in town would take these vouchers. It wasn't the best restaurant in town, either, believe me. You go in there, and you give them that voucher. "Ah, yeah, another Army guy." Feed you those biscuits and gravy in the morning for breakfast. It was food. What the heck.

MilliganWas that one of the things you were interested in when you signed up? 20:00The travel?

KekahbahYou know, I really didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't know I was going to be traveling so much. I just didn't. It was new to me. No one knew--there wasn't anyone I could talk to where they said, "Yeah, you'll be doing this. You'll be doing--." No one ever said anything. That was probably the majority of the kids that I went into basics training with was probably the same way. They were just filling in that obligation. They had, they called them USes, which was the two-year guys, was USes. then the rest were RAs [Regular Army]. Now, they gave you a serial number, but preceding the serial number was these letter designations. If you was US, two years. If you was RA, three years or more.

MilliganWere you treated differently between the two designations?

KekahbahNo, all the same.

MilliganWere there other people from Oklahoma in your basic training or when you went off to boot camp?

KekahbahYes. In the end it was probably--I say "in the end." At the end of basic training they gave you travel pay, and you could spend it any way you want to. Buy you a new car, a jet, whatever, but most everyone just bought that bus ticket. You jumped on a Trailways bus, and there was about two or three or four of us from Oklahoma on the same bus. We all stayed on the same bus, and, man, that was exciting. See, there wasn't any interstates then. It was exciting going 22:00through these little places. We stopped in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Boy, you heard of Santa Fe, but you'd never been there before! I was looking out of this little window on this bus, and there was this drunk, staggering, coming across the street toward the bus. I said, "Oh, no, I hope he don't get on the bus--" but he didn't. That was my big experience with Santa Fe, this drunk coming toward the bus. They left us. We got off at the bus terminal in Oklahoma City. Everyone then just split up to go to different places in Oklahoma.

MilliganI wondered, too, how did you adjust to boot camp when you got out there, the military side of things?

KekahbahI had been to Chilocco, and Chilocco you got up around five thirty. From 23:00there, you came to the dining room at eight. From there, you went home. You cleaned up your room because it was inspected every day. From there, you went to school or your trade, whatever you were--well, both of them. The fact that I already was kind of used to being regimented, you might say, going into the military wasn't that hard. They were more harsh because of the authorities there, the sergeants, and if you got in trouble with the captain or lieutenants or whatever. For the most part it was the sergeants telling you what to do and 24:00getting you squared away and on time, how to march, that type of thing.

MilliganSo the regimen of military wasn't necessarily hard to adjust because you'd been similar but--.

KekahbahI'll put it this way. Initially, the level of regimentation at Chilocco and the Army when you first went into basic training, after about the first week, the Chilocco stuff was out the window. From then, it was kind of like all new because it was much harder.

MilliganHow did you feel about being there in that sort of environment?

KekahbahI didn't like it. I didn't like it because people were from all over the country in the same room that you were in, and you probably had enough for one 25:00platoon, which is about forty men, in one room. There was a lot of segregation then. You may have had one or two blacks in the whole company, (that was about two hundred men) and the rest was Indians and Mexicans and whites. The majority was white people, white men, boys. There was about one or two Mexicans, and they were always from California. I didn't have any problem with that, but there's always one or two SOBs wants to talk about the Indians, wants to talk about the 26:00black people, wants to talk about the Mexicans at nighttime after the lights are out, see. They knew you was the only one in that whole platoon in there and you wasn't going to do nothing. They knew that. They did that on purpose. It was a little uncomfortable, but I had friends there, especially those Okies.

MilliganWere the other Okies, were they Indian, as well, or were they white?

KekahbahNo, they was all white.

Milligan-- That was one of the things that I was thinking about, too. I'm trying to obviously figure this stuff out, too. With the National Guard unit here at Chilocco, it seems like there was a lot of Native Americans that would've joined 27:00that company. I know it wasn't exclusively from the Chilocco staff or faculty. It was from the surrounding county, as well, or the area. I was just interested--. It sounds like you were the only one that signed up. You signed up by yourself to enlist. You weren't with other of your classmates or any of those.

KekahbahNo, no, no. You know, when you leave, like Chilocco, when you leave Chilocco, you just spread out. I was the only one in my little town that was attending Chilocco, male-wise. Had about two or three females from Pawhuska that was attending Chilocco, but you just didn't know them that well. Even though the little town of Pawhuska was small, I still didn't know that many. It was like 28:00going up by yourself. We didn't associate with the girls, anyway. They wouldn't--it was just frowned on.

MilliganWas there opportunities to talk with the girls? I know the campus was kept pretty segregated. Did you have opportunities to socialize?

KekahbahOh, yeah, they had socialization after school. There was a little place--they had two gyms. One was the girls' gym, and the boys' gym. The girls' gym I guess was one of the initial gyms here at Chilocco, smaller. That's where the girls played their basketball, etcetera, and they had a little snack shop there. They sold drinks and candy and stuff. That's where you would socialize 29:00with the girls. They had bleachers there, so you'd sit on the bleachers and talk. Or on a weekend they had, I'd say, on Saturday afternoon, say, from about one to three or one to four, you could socialize out of doors, still kind of under supervision because they always had one of the advisors or two, at least one woman and female advisor, one male advisor there, overlooking the campus during this time to keep everybody straight. As far as this socialization was concerned, the only time I was able to do that was on weekends because this socialization from Monday through Friday was after school and it lasted about an 30:00hour or so before supper.

Then after supper, they didn't have anything. You had to stay I your dorms. You was out for sports. I was out for football, so I didn't socialize. Basketball, I was out for basketball; didn't socialize. Track, track season came along, you was out for track; didn't socialize. One time I said, "To hell with this track stuff. I'm tired of this. It's too much work, not enough glory. I'm not going to do this track. You're out there running, and then you compete, you don't win. These other guys from other teams, they're just too good. To heck with this. I'm going to go out, and I'm going to socialize." You know when I got out there, I didn't know how to do that. (Laughs) That was all new to me. I said, "Gah, I 31:00can't do this. I'd rather be running track than fighting it out here on this turf," so I went back out for track.

MilliganWas the part that was new to you was trying to talk to girls?

KekahbahYeah, yeah, that was the hard part. I was bashful. I'd get out and play sports in front of everybody, but that was different because you could shut out the crowd and play your sport. But there you had to socialize. I just didn't know how to do that. It was hard.

MilliganSo did you really go back to track, then?

KekahbahYeah, I went back to track. (Laughter) I was used to the coach, used to the guys. That was my environment, sports.

MilliganThe tiny bit of time between when you decided to enlist and you went 32:00back home, were you comfortable back in your environment?

KekahbahAt home?

MilliganYes.

KekahbahThe only thing I was comfortable with was my mom. Other than that, no. I just didn't--I felt kind of out of place there, too.

MilliganYou felt out of place at Chilocco, too? Is that what you were saying?

KekahbahNo, at--.

MilliganOh, you felt out of place at home.

KekahbahYeah, it's kind of like socializing and not going out for track, that kind of feeling and going home. There just wasn't anything to do. There was no more kids around. No regimentation, I guess. Maybe that's what I missed. I just don't know.

MilliganSo when you finished your basic training you--let's pick up there. You 33:00went to California, and you went to Fort Campbell after that. Is that correct?

KekahbahI went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and I joined the 11th Airborne Division there. I learned how to jump from airplanes. That unit, 11th Airborne Division, was scheduled. There was an Army term called Gyroscope. There would be an American unit that would go to Europe, and the European Army unit would go to where the American--they traded places. That's the one I ended up going in. I ended up going to Germany. It was while I was in Germany that I decided to go 34:00ahead and reenlist for three more years. All my buddies, all my friends, they said, "Don't do it, Frank! Don't do it!" I did it. For one thing, the enticement was the money involved. Reenlistment bonus! What I ended up doing was after that time was up, I said, "I got this much time in the Army. After twenty years I can retire. Heck, I'll only be thirty-eight years old and I'll have a retirement." So that's what I ended up doing. I stayed twenty and a half years in the Army.

MilliganFrom a two-year stint to twenty, right?

KekahbahWell, from a three-year.

MilliganFrom your initial--.

KekahbahYeah, my initial three years to twenty.

MilliganSo you were pretty early, then, when you got sent to Germany. One of the 35:00things that struck me, that you joined the Airborne Division, and also one of the things that lured you in was this poster with these paratroopers in the background.

KekahbahYeah, oh, man, you had to be--yeah, you don't want to be that dog leg. You can use a better term. (Laughter)

MilliganIt's your language; you can say whatever you want. It's totally yours. So how did you actually decide to do that? Was it--did you basically kind of have in mind, like, "I want to do that," or did someone offer you that as an option? How did you actually go into the paratrooping?

KekahbahWhen I saw the picture outside, I didn't want to be a regular soldier. 36:00Plus, I [got] paid more to be a paratrooper and to be on jump status. Heck, you got paid fifty-five dollars more a month. Boy, that's big money. You know what I mean? Wear those parachute wings, the whole bit, man. That was an incentive was the money, also. Plus, I thought they looked pretty good. They were different, little different.

MilliganSo where did you train to do that, then?

KekahbahAt Fork Campbell, Kentucky.

MilliganThat was the Fort Campbell, okay. Do you remember the first time that you had to jump out of a plane?

KekahbahSure, you always remember that first time. You're scared as hell. I remember we were--they called them Hollywood jumps because all you did was have 37:00a parachute on. You didn't have a weapon; you didn't have a pack; you didn't have equipment; you didn't have explosives with you, nothing like that, just a parachute and a helmet. They were called Hollywood jumps. I remember on the first jump, they suited us up and--they didn't suit us up. We suited ourselves up. We were walking toward the aircraft, and there was this big, huge airplane. All of a sudden I looked down on the tarmac. That's what they call the runway. Everyone else calls it runway, but military calls it a tarmac. I looked down on that tarmac, and somebody had threw up. Oh, no. Boy, that didn't make me feel very good at all. You know what I mean? Gee whiz. That was probably the only 38:00thing that--. They had it pretty much set up. They had this sergeant staying there at the door.

You took plenty of ground training. You know how to shove through the door. You had these thirty-four-foot towers. You had to walk up the tower, and all you had on was the harness. You didn't have the actual parachute on, but they hooked up the harness that you was wearing to some--I'll just call them rowers. You practice jumping out of these thirty-four-foot towers. When you jump back, you practice how to position yourself, etcetera. Jumping out of the airplane was 39:00just like jumping out of that tower except this rushing noise. You looked down there. It's so far down there type thing, but you just did it. There was a sergeant standing at the door, said, "Come on up here." You come up there; you turn around; you get ready for the door. He'd hit you on the butt like that, and you'd jump out. The next guy up. They weren't rushing you through it. One at a time, one at a time. That's the way it was. It was still scary, though.

MilliganWas it scary the second time you did it?

KekahbahEvery time. I ended up with seventy-nine jumps. You're scared every time.

MilliganIt kind of scares me just thinking about it. (Laughter) So did 40:00you--after that first couple of jumps, did you still think it was the right choice for you?

KekahbahYeah, it was good because you was there with guys with as many jumps that you had, four or five. Pretty soon it got to be ten. Then you had some of these old sergeants. When you qualified to jump, they'd give you a pair of wings. Then you go to take further training to assess--I was talking about that sergeant showing you how to stand. He was the sergeant that was trained to do that. He was probably called the jumpmaster. The jumpmaster, if you went to that school and you passed the jumpmaster's school, they gave you a star to put over your wings. Then a master jumpmaster meant you took further training, and it was 41:00a wreath around the star. You know what I mean? There was kind of a little--yeah. I tried to go to jumpmaster school to be a jumpmaster and be able to wear that little star on my wings, but I was scheduled, in the company that I was in, I was scheduled to go--to jumpmaster school. There was a young second lieutenant, eighteen years old, that wanted to go to jumpmaster school, so guess what? He took my slot to go to jumpmaster school! After that I said, "What? You can take that jumpmaster school, and you know what you can do with it." I never did go.

MilliganWhy did they send him instead of you? Did you have any--KekahbahRank has its privileges. That's what it was, pure and simple. It's going to look good on this little lieutenant's résumé: Jumpmaster. He'll probably never jumpmaster a load of troops in his life, but he's going to have that on his résumé.

MilliganSo they never--you didn't pursue it after that?

KekahbahNo, I had chances to go after that, and they asked me if I wanted to go. I said, "No, I'm not going. To heck with it--."

MilliganWere they surprised?

KekahbahNo, they just took it.

MilliganWhat did you think about when you ended up being stationed in Germany. Where were you stationed?

KekahbahThe unit that I was in, they sent us to Munich, Germany. Couldn't send 43:00us to, my way of thinking, a better place. Had a lot of women there and a lot of booze. You know what I mean? Yeah, man, that was fun! Smoking cigarettes, drinking booze, oh, man.

MilliganHow old were you?

KekahbahEighteen, (Laughs) eighteen, turning nineteen. I don't know why I didn't go to the stockade, but I didn't go. Somebody had mercy on me or something because I was always getting in trouble, missing bed check and everything.

MilliganSo primarily getting in trouble for missing bed check?

KekahbahOh, yeah, you don't miss bed check.

MilliganHow come you didn't get in trouble, then, or how come you didn't get in more trouble, I guess?

KekahbahI don't know. I think the thinking then was, "Well, it's just this young 44:00kid, and other than the fact he missed bed check, he's a pretty good soldier. He dressed neat all the time and kept his military bearing up," I guess, for my age. Did what I was told to do, etcetera, etcetera. "So he missed bed check, so we're not going to throw him in the stockade."

MilliganWhat were you doing while you were stationed in Germany, other than drinking, smoking, and carousing?

KekahbahJust training.

MilliganSo it was primarily training?

KekahbahYeah, that's all it was, just training and training. It was very cold in Germany, probably not any colder than Colorado. That's where I live now. The thing about it was is that you went out and--I see those World War II buoys in 45:00the Army in Europe in the cold and the winter and snow, the ice, all that stuff. I think, "I did that, but it wasn't war." It was training, so you went out in the boondocks in the snow and the mud and the ice and all this stuff. That's part of your training, so there it was. I wasn't the only one, everybody else too.

MilliganYeah, it does get cold, though. This would've been the--would this have been the late ʼ50s, early ʼ60s when you were there?

KekahbahYes, middle ʼ50s.

MilliganSo within about a decade after the end of World War II, then.

KekahbahYeah. In Munich--you talked about where'd I go. I went to Munich, Germany, and they were still rebuilding Munich. Primarily, looking at the 46:00history of the heavy bombing that took place, you never heard of Munich. Munich still got bombed, but it wasn't anything militarily that I know of that rated Munich to be bombed, but it was bombed. Anyway, some of the bombed out buildings, the shells of the buildings, were still there. They were still in the process of tearing them down. They had a very nice park, well, parks, I guess. For the most part Munich is flat, but they have these nice rolling hills for a park. What I found out later is they took all this rubble, put it there, covered it with dirt, seeded it, made a park out of it. It was just rubble from the city--

MilliganPretty dramatic.

Kekahbah--but they made a park out of it.

MilliganThis is from a personal experience of mine, so I'm just curious about it. Culturally, like, pop culturally, there is sort of this fascination with Native Americans in Germany. Did you experience any of that?

KekahbahYeah, yeah. They just, "Indian!" They call it Indianer. "Indianer! Indianer! Siouxex? Siouxex?" They wanted to know if I was Siouxex. I said, "No, I'm not Siouxex, man." (Laughs) They meant Sioux, you know, but they called it Siouxex. That was, I guess, primarily the word that came from the United States was the Indian wars and the Sioux. They called it Siouxex.

MilliganHow'd that make you feel? Was that a comfortable place for you to be?

KekahbahNo, and it wasn't anything derogatory about it. It was just, "Hey, there's an Indian here. Yeah, okay I've heard of you guys. Buy him a beer!" (Laughs)

MilliganThere you go. That was your key, right?

KekahbahYeah.

Milligan"I'll tell you about it if you buy me a beer." (Laughter)

KekahbahOh, yeah. (Laughter)

MilliganSo how long were you there, in general, the grand total in Germany, in Munich, for training?

KekahbahI spent a total of five years in Germany.

MilliganWow, that's a long time. So was that all training, or was that post-training?

KekahbahNo, it was all Army and the training that was a part of it.

MilliganSo you were five years in Munich, and then where did you go after that?

KekahbahI came back to the States, and that was as far as my going overseas from the United States--when you left the United States, you would call that (it was just a general term) "overseas." I spent five years in Germany and two years in Vietnam.

MilliganOkay, so you went straight from Germany to Vietnam.

KekahbahNo, I went from Germany to the United States, and my first tour in Vietnam was '67-'68.

MilliganSo what was--where did you go in Vietnam? Where were you deployed to, 50:00and what was going on there?

KekahbahI was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division at Củ Chi, C-U C-H-I, two words, Củ Chi, Vietnam. The United States took South Vietnam, and they broke it into four, we call them, corps. The northern part was I Corps or One Corps. The next corps was II Corps, then III Corps, then around the delta at the bottom was IV Corps. Well, I was in III Corps. To give you a little perspective, Saigon 51:00was in III Corps. I was stationed just north of Saigon at Củ Chi.

MilliganWhen you got your orders that you were going to be deployed to Vietnam, how did you feel about that? What did you know going into it?

KekahbahI knew that was an eventuality of me going to Vietnam. The question was, which outfit would you be stationed at. I was in the airborne. I wanted to be stationed with an airborne outfit, but that didn't happen. The Army says, "No, the airborne guys are full. We need to put you over here," so that's why I went with 25th Infantry Division. It wasn't Airborne Division. That's how I ended up. I didn't mind. What the heck. You spend twelve months there. The airborne calls 52:00an un-airborne unit a leg unit, so I went to a leg unit. I spent twelve months there. That was my first tour. Then I came back, stayed a couple of years. Then got orders to go back a second time.

MilliganWhat years were that? Do you know?

KekahbahThat was '71 and '72.

MilliganWhen you were in Củ Chi with the 25th Infantry, what was your role? What was your primary job?

KekahbahInitially I was a squad leader, and then I became a platoon sergeant.

MilliganSo what did you do? What was your assignment? What was, sort of, a day-to-day?

KekahbahAs a squad leader you went out and patrolled. The outfit I was with was 53:00with a scout dog outfit, so you worked with dogs. I took that training before I went to Vietnam, scout dog training. What you would do, what we would do--the only way that the division I was with used scout dogs (they was called scout dogs teams, a man and a dog) was for night patrol. Night patrol was ambush patrols. You had kind of a semi-permanent division. The 25th Division was here, and it took a little small part of Vietnam, Củ Chi. The division was made up 54:00of smaller units. The scout dogs would be going out with different units within a division, and what they used them primarily for was for night patrol. What they would do is when you'd pull a night ambush, you would leave--you went out forward, they called it.

Someone in headquarters said, "Okay, we need to do a lot of sweeps here, we need to do a lot of ambushes here, and this is the best place for it." A bunch of helicopters landed a bunch of men over in that one area. Helicopters would leave, so there you would be. That's where we would be. From that little area 55:00there, set up a little perimeter. Then at nighttime, you ran ambush patrols from that little perimeter. What we did as scout dogs, we would lead that ambush patrol to the ambush site. Then coming back, we'd lead the patrol back because it was the dog was the one that was going to--. You know, these guys, they weren't dummies. The Viet Cong weren't dummies; they were very smart. These dogs just kind of helped be sure that you got back okay because their senses are so much better than a human being's, so that's what we used them for.

MilliganBasically to alert.

KekahbahYes, yeah, either smell or sound primarily. If you could read a dog, a dog's smell, sound, sight, and that's what they used the dogs for. You were 56:00trained to read the call. You were trained to read that dog. That dog can tell you, say, "Hey, do you see me looking over this way?" They didn't say that. They just looked over there. That's all. He didn't know he was relaying a message to you, the handler, when he did that. That's why you was reading the dog, to save your life.

MilliganWere there times that--do you remember instances where the dog did alert you to things around?

KekahbahSure. What Charlie would do--Viet Cong was called VC. The Army in phonetic alphabet, V would be Victor, and C would be Charlie. We just called them Charlies. So Charlie, what he would do, he'd wait outside your perimeter 57:00when you was out forward because there's only one or two places you set up wire. Well there's only one or two places that you get in and out of this perimeter was through--. He's no dummy. He'd just set up, wait for you guys to get out. You leave about twilight so you could still see pretty good at nighttime. By the time you got to your ambush site, though, it was pretty dark. You knew where you were going anyway so it wasn't that you're blind going out there. You knew where you was going. Charlie'd be waiting for you.

What he would do was that he would follow you, flank you until you're set up. Then he'd go back and get his buddies, and he'd set up for you so when you went back in the morning, he could ambush you. Or he would just attack you at your ambush site. One incident was that when you had a dog team you had the dog, and 58:00you had the handler. You had a shotgun, also, they called it. What he was doing, he was covering the dog handler because the dog handler's supposed to be focusing on the dog and not looking around to his left and right because a dog will pick up 99.9 percent but that one percent--. That's why you had this shotgun guy back there. He was looking, too, you know. I was pulling a shotgun, said, "Okay, I'll go out." I was pulling a shotgun, and so away we went. The ambush people were behind us.

As soon as we left--we'd set up concertina wire, (it was this rolled-up wire like this) concertina wire to make our perimeter. That's where we had little 59:00gates, between the concertina wire, where they had little gates, little openings. Soon as we left that little opening and all the patrol got through it, then they would close the gate, so to speak, actually just pull the wire. I noticed this dog do a, it's called a sound alert. All the dog will do, he'll look, ears go up, back down again, keep going. As soon as we left that thing, that dog went like that. I said, "That's the sound alert." When I was taking this scout dog training, I took the training, and like I was saying, I would train new handlers. Here I am pulling shotgun, but I'm still looking at this scout dog handler and the dog, too. I was reading the dog more than I was 60:00looking at the handler. I was reading the dog. This guy didn't catch that because what we would have done, what we're trained to do, is stop and say, "Hey, look, as soon as we left, the dog picked up." He didn't say anything, just kept on going.

I was saying, "This dumb-A." I stop the patrol and told the patrol leader, I said, "Hey, will you bring the patrol leader up? I got to talk to him." Okay, brought him up. I said, "We're being flanked on our left." "We are?" "Yeah, pass it on back. Flank on left, flank on left." Went and got it, I guess, all the way back to the end. We kept on doing. Then we took a sharp right, went about another hundred yards or so and set up an ambush. I'm just surmising this. The 61:00guys that was following us, flanking us, when we took that sharp right, they didn't know that. they just kept going straight. (Laughs) When they found out, "Hey, these guys aren't here anymore. Where they at," they came back and went down this trail that we took. By that time, we was already set up, and here they came. We ambushed them. Good feeling. Better them than us.

MilliganIt seems so intense, but I've never talked to anybody that had dogs, had this dog training. That's interesting.

KekahbahThey'll save your life.

MilliganSo you did this squad leader for the scout dog unit for--

KekahbahI was squad leader then ended up being platoon sergeant.

Milligan--and then platoon sergeant. What was your role, then, when you were platoon sergeant?

KekahbahA squad leader just takes care of his eight to ten men in his squad. A platoon sergeant takes care of all four squads. He's really kind of in charge of all forty, (I'll say forty) forty men in this squad. That's it, the men. He's not concerned about the dogs. Someone else does the dogs, but he's not concerned about it. He doesn't do everything. He can't. No way. It's hard enough trying to keep forty guys squared away. That's one good thing about the military is that they had this--it's called Uniform Code of Military Justice. They say you got to do it this way, this way, this way. If you don't, this, this, and this is going 63:00to happen to you if you don't do it. You kind of got that working for you, but he's got to follow guidelines, also. He's just doing kind of like the administrative stuff for these guys. You make sure that they get fed. You make sure they get clothes. You make sure they get medical stuff. You have to put out a daily report on your platoon. You have to send it forward. "Forty guys are here. Two went on sick call. Two went on leave," that type of stuff, administrative stuff.

MilliganWhich did you prefer to do?

KekahbahFor not being shot at, I'd rather do platoon sergeant stuff. You know 64:00what I mean? (Laughs) Yeah. Those helicopters, they're big targets. The sides of those helicopters weren't bulletproof. They was just real thin aluminum. A BB would go through them as far as I was concerned.

MilliganUnderstood. So you went back to the US in '68, right?

KekahbahI was there in '67 and '68, and I went back in '71 and '72.

MilliganRight, so you were in the US in between those two times?

KekahbahYeah.

MilliganWere you stationed somewhere during that time at home?

KekahbahI was stationed in--I went back to Fort Campbell, so that was the second 65:00time I was at Fort Campbell. I was with the 101st Airborne Division at that time. While I was there--let's see. No, the second time I was at Fort Campbell was I got my orders for my first tour. Then when I came back, I went to helicopter school. The second time I went, I was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, and I got orders to go back a second time.

MilliganSo what did you do when you had your second tour in '71-'72?

KekahbahWhen I was there in my first tour in Saigon, they had this scout dog headquarters there, like a scout dog headquarters. These guys were just strictly administrative, and they ran all of the scout dogs in all of South Vietnam. That's the kind of outfit they had. They had control over them in some fashion, not direct control, but administrative, like I said. The second time I went over there, you have to go to personnel. They're going to say, "Hey, Sarge, we're 67:00going to send you here because there was an opening here and they need you here. They don't need you at the--." I wanted to go with this particular unit, 101st. They said, "No, you can't go there. They don't need you; they're full. We need you over here." I said, "Oh, man, I don't want to go that--outfit." I went to the personnel sergeant down there. I said, "Hey, this scout dog headquarters is right here. It's just down the road from here. We got an opening down there?" "Let me check. Yeah, they got an opening." I said, "I want to go there." He said, "Okay." (Laughs) So I didn't go back out in the boondocks. I laid back. It 68:00was all good guys. You know what I mean? Drinking beer and sodas, eating three meals a day and all this kind of stuff. My second tour there was a piece of cake.

MilliganSo what was your job then? So you were back in--you were in sort of scout dog headquarters, so back dealing with that.

KekahbahWhat I was, was it was kind of a larger outfit than just a platoon. It's kind of like a company-level type thing. We had a first sergeant there, and there was three sub-training outfits. One was from mine dogs, one was from scout dogs, and one was tracker dogs. When I went there, they had the scout dog opening, so I took over the scout dog training at that level.

MilliganWas this something that you had previous experience with or special rapport? Anything with dogs before you took the initial training? Like how did you decide to go into that?

KekahbahNo, they just said, "Hey, there's an opening for your MOS [military occupational specialty]." MOSes are number designations. I was a 113. They said, "Hey, there's a 113 opening at such and such a place. We're going to put you over there." It didn't make any difference. You just go there. "Okay, here I am." That's how I got into that.

MilliganThat's interesting that you sort of went this entire paratrooping route and then ended up--.

KekahbahYeah, in a non-paratrooper outfit because of my MOS. Now, they had 113s in the paratroops, but they have them all over. The parachute is just a small 70:00part of the Army, too, because the Army is very big. The 113s, they had them everywhere, so, "Hey, there's an opening. I'm going to send you there." That's how I ended up there.

MilliganDid you enjoy that?

KekahbahYeah, I liked it because--you mean the 113?

MilliganSpecifically, the dog handling part of it.

KekahbahYeah, I liked the dog handing because I like dogs, first of all. I like dogs, and dogs are smart. Dogs are trainable, and they'll save your life in a combat situation. Those infantries are supposed to be out there in the boondocks, you know, beating the bushes. That's what you was trained to do. You want to take all the odds you got going with you, and one of them is having a dog. Oh, those dogs loved to ride. They'd ride helicopters, Jeeps, 71:00deuce-and-a-halfs [cargo truck], pickups. Whatever you got, they love to ride. Yeah, man, they like riding those helicopters, wind blowing in their fur and everything. All right!

MilliganHow did that match up with--you went back and did helicopter school. Did you use that training at all?

KekahbahNo, didn't use it. I flew helicopters, but I never was assigned to a helicopter unit. Never flew in combat, and just as well. They're big targets. They go down easy.

MilliganSo your last tour was in Saigon, primarily?

KekahbahMy last tour, yes. I take that back. It wasn't Saigon. It was a place outside of Saigon called Bien Hoa.... It was probably across the Saigon River 72:00maybe fifteen, twenty miles, something like that. No, I wasn't in Saigon. I'm sorry if I said that I was.

MilliganNo, that's why I was clarifying.

KekahbahYeah, it was Bien Hoa. It was like being in Saigon. There wasn't anything hot going on there. It was nice and easygoing stuff. That's what usually kind of irked me a little bit. These guys come here in Vietnam; they go to Bien Hoa. What? No, man. You go to Củ Chi first, earn your stuff. Then you can come back to Bien Hoa. You don't go to Bien Hoa first and then go back and say, "I've been in Vietnam." Yeah, right, okay. (Laughs)

MilliganDid you all talk about that? Like, when you came back after your tour, 73:00did you talk about that with other military folks? Was that sort of--.

KekahbahNo, it was just a given.

MilliganIt was just a given?

KekahbahYeah. --

Milligan-- I think what I was asking is the mindset of what your experience really was in Vietnam was where you were stationed. Is that something that you all actually talked about, or is that something that was commonly, a belief that was commonly felt?

KekahbahNo, it was just a given. It was known. A guy who spent time out in Củ Chi and a guy who he talked to who spent time in Bien Hoa, now they were both in Vietnam. That's a given. They were both in Vietnam. You never really talk down to a guy--. The thing about it was he was still drawing the same pay you were, man, combat pay and all that. Yeah, okay, he wasn't no combat. I didn't mind 74:00drawing combat pay when I wasn't in combat. You know what I mean? That was fine with me. Pay me!

MilliganIt sounds like you were realistic about how you reacted to your experience there or how you interacted with other military people when you came back based on where you were.

KekahbahYes, the only difference was the part of the country that you were in. The further north you were, the more jungley it was. When I got in the III Corps--in I Corps and II Corps, it was a lot of hills and jungles up there. The further south you went, the more flat it became because it was more rice paddy type stuff. I was in III Corps, so it was pretty flat, rice paddies. You go on 75:00patrol, and you had a choice. See, these rice paddies was kind of in squares. The water during growing season, the water's probably twelve inches deep, something like that, the rice grew in, but they had little berms that these folks, these farmers walked on. When you're out at night patrol, or day patrol, too, (I never went on day patrol; I was just night patrols) when you're going from one position to the other, you had a choice. You'd either slush across that water, or you'd walk on those little berms. All Charlie had to do was set up a machine gun right down that berm, waiting for those Americans to walk down that berm because they didn't want to walk in that water. It was always kind of iffy, but it never happened, not anything I remember, anyway.

MilliganSo which did you do? Did you slog through it, or did you walk on the--

KekahbahWalked the berm--

MilliganDid you?

Kekahbah...stayed dry. Darn right. The thing about it is, is that here you are, going to an ambush site that you're going to be on all night long with wet feet. You know what I mean? You got sloggy socks on, this type of stuff. Yeah, you had jungle boots, and they did--they weren't like these shoes I'm wearing now. They had little holes in them where water could leak out of them, and they dry pretty fast, but still you had it. The humidity was high there in Vietnam, so it didn't dry very fast. It was hot. I used to dig. I would dig--. At nighttime, Charlie 77:00was good, mortaring you. Once you stood up, (I was talking about that little circular position you was in) Charlie's good. He's got those mortars. He'd throw mortars in. These guys were good with mortars. What I used to do was that at nighttime if I wasn't out on patrol, I'd dig me a--you can go down to the store here in town and buy you an air mattress, and it was just about the size of your body.

You blow it up or maybe you got a pump. We didn't have pumps; we had to blow them up. You blow up your air mattress. What I would do was that--what you 78:00wanted to do is you wanted to dig you a foxhole, not the kind like World War II where you stood in it. No, this was a foxhole where you laid down in it. If you laid down in that foxhole at nighttime to go to sleep, you couldn't go to sleep. It was too hot, too humid. What you would do, what I would do, blow up the air mattress, and you didn't lay the air mattress out on the top of the ground because you got mortared and you were done, toast. What I would do, I'd dig me a, the size of the length of my body and the width of my body, I'd dig me a little hole, a little trench-type thing. Blow up the air mattress, put the air mattress in the hole, then when I lay on the air mattress I was above ground because you lay down in a hole, man, you just sweat to death. If Charlie started 79:00mortaring, all you had to do is you pull that little plug out of that hole there, and the air will just let you down right inside that hole, baby.

You learn those little things. (Laughs) You had to be comfortable. I mean how you going to be comfortable out there where it's hot and mosquitoes all over the place. That was another thing, though, was those mosquito nets just for your head and your neck. It was kind of like this, the top and the bottom, and between the top and the bottom was the net. The top and the bottom was small like this so you could put it over your hat like this. Then it would come over, and it would clasp around your neck. That would keep the mosquitos off because they'll eat you to death, man, on your face. The only bad thing about it's when 80:00you go to sleeping like this and that net falls on your face. Those darn mosquitoes'll get you right through the net. They just won't give you any peace, so you slept up all the time. Keep that net off your face so you wouldn't get those mosquitoes biting you.

MilliganHow much of the time that you were there that first time that you were sort of out in the field did you have to sleep out in the field and you were in that sorts of positions?

KekahbahThey rotated you out there. That platoon sergeant I was telling you about, he had the platoon list, and he had you by squad. He knew when you was out the last time, how long you'd been out, and who has to go out next. So the 81:00time you go out there probably would be, I'd say, from three to five days you'd be out there. Then you'd come back in; helicopter'd bring you back in. Then the next guys that was their turn was going to take this guy's place. There was always someone doing that scout handler's job all the time out there.

MilliganYeah. You had cycles that were--so maybe a third of the time that you were scout handler, you were actually out in the field somewhere.

KekahbahYeah, that's right. I'd say about a third. That was enough for me. I mean, there was guys that was out there all the time, man. We used to go--you go from one position, and the higher-ups say, "Okay, we pretty much ran all the--. We don't think there's anybody here anymore. We're going to move over here." So they'd take a whole battalion, helicopters, and move from one place to the 82:00other. It'd take four or five trips, but they'd finally get everybody moved. I tell you what. When you're flying in that Huey helicopter, it'll go about six per in that Huey. Everyone would be sitting at the open--the doors would be open on the sides. Everyone's legs would be outside the door, and everyone'd be sitting in the helicopter like this. You know why? So cool. That air blowing on you, man, that felt so good. You hadn't taken a shower in a week, but still yet that cool air felt so good because you was all sweaty and dirty and grimy. Hey, that was one of the good things, that cool air hitting you on the face, yeah. 83:00That was neat.

MilliganI've never thought about that. That's cool.

KekahbahThe thing about it is you never see any--when you go outside and hear a helicopter, you don't see people sitting in the door like that. That don't happen. A place like that, that's common. So you fell out. Well, hopefully you didn't. Somebody'd grab onto you or something. The helicopter made sure you was level all the time. If they was going to turn, then you could feel the (Humming). Hold on because they're turning a little bit. The weight's shifting.

MilliganThat's a big shift from the first time you rode a plane, to boot camp, to hanging your legs out the side of a Huey.

KekahbahYeah, oh, definitely. Helicopters, when I first went in in '55, helicopters were no big deal then. They were just getting started. They had, 84:00maybe, little observation helicopters at best.

MilliganI think for the sake of time, I want to talk a little bit about when you finished your second tour in Vietnam and you came back to the States in '72. You left the military in '75, so maybe let's talk a little bit about the time between when you came back and when you retired. What happened then? Then we'll talk a little bit about when you reengaged with civilian life.

KekahbahMy last tour in Vietnam, I came back in '72 and retired in '75, so it was three years. In the wisdom of the Army, they sent me to a Army 85:00rehabilitation place. What it was for, (that's not the correct name for it, but that's the only thing I can think of now) guys that was sent to the stockade, the Army did not want to give them a discharge because they felt they'd spent enough money on that. You should be able to retrain him and send him back to a regular unit again instead of just kicking him out. That's what I was. I was part of the retraining for these retreads, you could say. That's what I did for three years, as they call the correctional outfit I was in. What they taught was infantry training. They didn't teach how to drive a truck or anything. It was 86:00all infantry, so they taught these kids how to soldier.

MilliganHow did you feel about being stationed there and doing that work?

KekahbahOh, piece of cake! All I did was teach classes. You taught maybe, I'm going to say, three, let's see, five days a week. I only worked five days a week. Didn't have to work weekends. That's neat. As far as teaching classes were concerned, I'd say on average, two to three hours a day. The rest of the time you just rehearsed your classes, did a little study for your classes, and just hung out in your little area. It was a piece of cake. I loved it. Nothing hard 87:00about that. You got shined boots all the time. Starch your uniforms all the time. Hey, you was cool. Darn right.

MilliganHow about working with the soldiers that needed some sort of retraining?

KekahbahFirst of all, the way I felt was that they shouldn't have been there in the first place. The only reason they was there was because they'd messed up, so I didn't like them that well. I really didn't have that much--I wasn't in the barracks with them all the time taking them to this place, that place, taking them to--. All I did was just train them. I just had, like I said, about three hours a day, but they was sitting in chairs, and I was on a stage, teaching classes. Didn't know them individually, nothing. If there was two guys down in 88:00the front talking, I'm trying to give a class and two guys in the front, down in front, talking, I just stop and I said, "Hey, you two down in the front here," I'd tell them, say, "I have the floor." About that time, their cabby come up, pick them up, take them out, one of those kind of deals.

There was nothing to it. I didn't have to do that. Their cabby did that for me. I just kind of pointed them out because they were interrupting, and that's the kind of life they were. They were just soldiers, and maybe the same way on the outside. They just couldn't get along well. -- These two guys, those people were kind of misfits. They just didn't fit in well with society. Then again, the 89:00military will make you like, "No, I'm not going. Let me back up." You show up in the military more than you would because military's discipline. They didn't like discipline. No one likes discipline, but after a while you kind of accept it. These guys never accepted, so they ended up in that place, correctional place.

MilliganI understand. So when you did your three years there and you retired with twenty years in--.

KekahbahI retired with twenty and a half years in. I stayed in an extra six months, and I was allowed to do that. I knew the personnel sergeant pretty well. He and I played volleyball together. I'd go up and say, "Hey, man, can I stay another--." "Yeah, okay go ahead. Yeah, Frank, you're okay." I went in in 90:00January, so I was going to be discharged in January, twenty years. This was in Kansas. -- I went down and talked to him. "Can I extend for six more months?" "Yeah." I got out when it was nice and warm in June. That's why I stayed in. (Laughter)

MilliganI can believe that after hearing about all the other points of strategy you had. I think I want to focus--we probably have another maybe five minutes. I want to let you go for lunch soon, but I wanted to ask a little bit about--. So since we're at the Chilocco reunion, I'm interested to hear, sort of, what brings you back to this. What is important about that that makes you come back to this reunion with this group?

KekahbahOh, yeah, they've had these reunions in other places other than this 91:00campus, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, some other places in Oklahoma. They just don't have it. So you go to a Ramada. Yeah, what kind of a deal is this? You know what I mean? There's nothing to it. The students are there, but it's not the setting. You come back to school here, a place that I spent four years at, place I call home. This is like homecoming; this is like going home, like going to Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Come to Chilocco. I don't know whether it's--I'm not quite sure about formative years, but I stayed for four years here. I went to school here; I slept here; I was fed here. They didn't clothe you, but they would've given you 92:00clothes, to students that didn't have clothes. But they were kind of institutional clothes. They weren't Levi's and pretty shirts. They were denim and denim shirts. Everyone knew where it came from, so no one ever did that. I never seen anyone, but they would clothe you if they wanted to, shoes, the whole bit.

I came up here. You'd work in the summertime, and you'd buy your own clothes. Work in the summertime, buy all your shoes, all your shirts, all your dress clothes. When I left here I had two or three changes of dress clothes. You wore Levi's and a shirt all the time when you was in the school, but for your social 93:00life--. I had two suits when I left here, and I bought them because I worked in the summertime. At the end of the summertime when it was time to go back to school, I'd go down to J. C. Penney or something and buy me a suit. "--.yeah, this looks pretty good." One button row, baby. You were hanging tough.-- You buy your own clothes. You buy your own shoes, your own socks, everything, underclothes, the whole gear. You didn't have any spending money left, but you had clothes to wear. You didn't need anything for food; you didn't spend anything for rent.

MilliganSo is part of the draw of coming back to the reunion, especially when it's on the Chilocco campus, that the folks here lived that same experience, then?

KekahbahYes, well, what I like about this, besides coming back home, so to speak, is that they always pick--I don't know. The only time I come back here--you can drive by here, and that front gate's locked, baby. You're not getting in, so when they do let you in, the place is nice and neat, grass is cut and everything. You wonder, "I wonder if they're not having a Chilocco reunion here if the grass is this tall. Does anyone ever cut the grass? Do they keep it this neat all the time?" Hopefully they do. Anyway, when you come back, it's like coming back. Even though they tore down the homes that I used to live in, (they're gone now) still yet they have Home Six here. I lived for two years at Home Six. They have those. The gym is still here. The dining room is still here. 95:00The oval's still here, and the little fish pond, and that type of thing.

They won't let you on other places' campuses that I'd like to go to, to see if they're still here because--well, I say "because." There's probably a lot of reasons, but they just won't let us go there. I'm just satisfied with what they got here. I like driving down this one-mile trip all the way down here. All of these trees that were probably here when I was here, still here! They're old and gnarled like me, you know, but they're still here! They use to have orchards here, but they don't have them here anymore. Orchard trees, I guess their longevity isn't like an old elm or something, so all the orchard trees, gone. They used to have, the staff that used to live here in the houses, I guess they 96:00let them have their own little gardens and stuff. They don't have those here anymore either.

MilliganRight, things have changed. Do you participate in a lot of the Saturday morning--like the veterans' breakfast and all that sort of stuff that they do specific?

KekahbahYes, I do. I do them all. Let's see. I don't know what they got. Oh, they got a Gourd Dance today at two o' clock that I'm thinking of going to. I'm a Gourd Dancer because I was in the military.

MilliganYou're a Gourd Dancer because you were in the military?

KekahbahThat's a qualification, yeah, be in the military, the Gourd Dance. The 97:00thing about it is, is that the Gourd Dance is they have Gourd Dance chapters, and I joined a chapter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when I used to work for--. That's where I first started Gourd Dancing. When they have a Gourd Dance here, I bring my paraphernalia with me, Gourd Dance.

MilliganWhat made you decide to join the Gourd Dancing group in Albuquerque?

KekahbahI had a friend of mine, he was from Laguna Pueblo. I don't know if you're familiar with the Pueblos around Albuquerque. He was from Laguna. He was talking about Gourd Dancing. He said, "Do you want to be a Gourd Dancer? You know you qualify." He was in the military. I said, "Yeah, okay." He said, "You need this, this, this, this, this." I said, "Okay." He said, "I want you to 98:00Gourd Dance, but you don't have any of the paraphernalia. I want you to Gourd Dance with me anyway." What you do, (I have it in my car, my own; it's a little toolbox) you just go down here to Circle K, and buy you a toolbox, put your stuff. Anyway, I have my toolbox. He said, "All I have is just a feather, one eagle feather, but you can use that." I said, "Okay." Everyone else had their regalia on, and I was standing there with a feather. You know what I mean? But I was Gourd Dancing, and that was my start, that one feather. I still got it--

MilliganThat's awesome.

Kekahbah--but now I got all the other stuff that goes with it. There's no set shawl, no set one, but it's primarily gold, red, and blue. If you want to put 99:00some of your emblems, military, you can put those on, too.

MilliganSo does it have some sort of significance or meaning to you to be able to do that, to be able to participate in the Gourd Dance? I mean, I understand you're a military veteran, but I wonder--you got this invitation to do it, but why do you do it? Like, is it--KekahbahOh, well, it's distinctive, and it's an honor to be a Gourd Dancer. You have to be accepted into a chapter or a clan, whatever the folks want to call it. You have to be accepted into that, and once you're accepted into that, you're in. You can Gourd Dance anywhere. No one will harass you, man. "What chapter do you belong to?" I've seen some guys in Gourd 100:00Dance outfits. "Man," I said, "Where'd this guy come from? Mars?" You just so different from everyone else. When I was in the military, I was in the Airborne. The Airborne is kind of distinct. They want to look sharp all the time. You got these others not in the Airborne outfits, and they're not looking very sharp. The same way goes for these Gourd guys. "Is that a Gourd Dancer? You don't look very sharp. Gee, man, take a little pride in what you're doing. Did you come off of a barstool or something? Come on."

Milligan"You just got one feather. What's wrong with you?"

KekahbahYeah, yeah, see! That's what they was thinking about me. "What's with this guy with one feather? He just come off a barstool? Yeah, right." I thought of that. (Laughs) That's funny!

MilliganWell, I want to let you go eat. There's other things I know I could ask you, but I want to let you eat. I don't want you to miss that--.

KekahbahI don't mind. I can always go down there and get me something to eat.

MilliganOkay one more question then. This fits in with you joining the Gourd Dancing group and doing that. After you retired, were there other veterans' groups that you have participated in? Are there other affiliated groups that you're involved with?

KekahbahYes, I belong to the American Legion. Reason I belong to the American Legion is because they have a bar. (Laughter) Other than that, I'm not really--.

MilliganInterested.

KekahbahYeah. -- I mean there are American Legionnaires that, boy, are just down to the bone American Legion type stuff. I like American Legion, but I qualify because I was in the military. You don't have to be a combat veteran. You can 102:00just be a veteran and belong in the American Legion, so it's a little different than--. Yeah, so kind of how that ties in with being a Gourd Dancer, you don't have to be in combat. You can just be a veteran, but you can tell the guys that's been in combat because they wear their combat insignia type stuff. You never talk to each other about whether you've been in combat or not combat, or whether you were in the Airborne or not Airborne, or, "You wasn't in the Army; you was in the Navy. You was in the Air Force." See, all this Navy, Air Force stuff is lesser than, see, as far as I'm concerned, than the Army, even the Marine Corps, lesser than, man, especially Airborne. Airborne's at the top. One 103:00of those kinds of deals. You just let it go, say, "Okay." Every once in a while you'll find a guy in the Airborne. Then you got something in common. You go and say, "Hey, man--."

MilliganI guess that's maybe--is there any sort of Native American veteran group that you participate with, or is that more your Gourd Dancing where that comes in?

KekahbahGourd Dance is the only one I know. It's, I won't say universal, but if you have a powwow, they're going to have Gourd Dances. It wasn't always that way, but it has been in the last couple of decades. For a powwow they'll always have a Gourd Dance. The fact that they have a Gourd Dance here, I wasn't surprised. That's good, and it's different. It's not a part of the powwow. It's 104:00separate. Anybody can powwow pretty much, but not everybody can Gourd Dance because you have to be in the military. The thing about it is, is that I've never seen a woman out there with a shawl on. Even though there are women, Indian women, (and there might be one here today) that's been in the military. It's a male organization type thing. As far as I know, it is. I've never known any females in this Gourd Dance outfit because back in the old days you didn't have women fighting, and that's where it started. The Gourd Dances started because of the warriors, so to speak. I'm not saying that the women that are 105:00veterans now aren't warriors. It's just kind of a male-type thing. I won't be surprised if there is--a woman standing out for their gourd or shawl on or something.

MilliganWhat do you think would have to happen in order to see that? Like for example--.

KekahbahYou know what it sounds like? Politics. And I'm not a politician. That's how I'm going to get out of that.

MilliganI got it. I was just going to ask if you knew there was a woman veteran and you asked to participate, would she be able to?KekahbahI'm thinking that it would be up to--when I went back to the chapter. You'd have to get permission, I think, from that particular chapter to say, "Can a woman Gourd Dance here," and they'd have to take a vote or something, I guess, however they handle things 106:00like that. I don't know. I'm pretty old-fashioned. I would say no, probably not, but I won't say it won't ever happen, and it'd be okay. I just wouldn't have anything to do with it--because if they asked me, I'd say no. "What? You let her, after I said no, to come in anyway?" See, I won't have to be in that position.

MilliganOut of politics.

KekahbahThere it is, out of it.

MilliganI can appreciate that. Well, we've been talking quite a chunk of time, even with all the interruptions, so I'm going--.

KekahbahWith the interruptions too, huh?

Milligan Yeah, we'll figure that out later. It was easier. I really appreciate you spending time with me today.

KekahbahIt was my pleasure.

MilliganIt was really interesting.

KekahbahYou know, I saw this on this little handout that there'd be someone 107:00talking to the veterans here. I thought, "I may or may not be asked to talk"--and I was thinking, "it'll probably be pretty shallow." That was my thought, but it wasn't. It was a good interview. I liked it. I enjoyed it.

MilliganThank you.

KekahbahYou was able to let me pretty much say what I wanted to say, that I haven't been able say, or would've never been able to say!

MilliganI'm happy for you.

KekahbahOne of those kind of deals.

MilliganI have a feeling you and I could've talked a lot longer.

Kekahbah Well, thank you very much.

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