{"id":2804,"date":"2016-11-11T02:40:57","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T10:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/on-eve-of-veterans-day-native-warriors-honored\/"},"modified":"2016-11-11T02:40:57","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T10:40:57","slug":"on-eve-of-veterans-day-native-warriors-honored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/on-eve-of-veterans-day-native-warriors-honored\/","title":{"rendered":"On eve of Veterans Day, ‘Native Warriors’ honored"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been more than five decades since Fred Bennett and 27 other young men left Hoonah, headed for the jungles of Vietnam. Like many of his peers, Bennett had never left his village at the time. He hardly knew why the U.S. was fighting a war half a world away.<\/p>\n

But that didn\u2019t stop Bennett and thousands of other Alaska Natives and American Indians from enlisting. According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, more than 42,000 Native Americans fought in Vietnam, a fact U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, referred to as \u201ca special kind of patriotism\u201d Thursday.<\/p>\n

That special patriotism didn\u2019t protect them from the horrors they encountered in Southeast Asia, horrors that still haunt them today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Vietnam War really affected us, and it affects me 51 years later,\u201d Bennett said, speaking as a panelist at a Sealaska Heritage Institute event honoring Southeast Alaska\u2019s Native warriors.<\/p>\n

During the event, SHI showed \u201cHunting in Wartime\u201d, a documentary about the 28 Hoonah Natives who fought in Vietnam. Five of the veterans featured in the film, including Bennett, participated in a panel discussion following the film.<\/p>\n

[‘Hunting in Wartime’: Vietnam veterans from Hoonah tell their stories<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Several speakers \u2014 including Bennett, Royal Hill and even Sullivan \u2014 talked about how poorly Vietnam vets, especially Alaska Natives, were treated upon returning home.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlaska Natives were out fighting for their country, and when they came home they weren\u2019t facing a country that was fighting for them,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

Bennett recalled being called a \u201cbaby killer\u201d when he got back to the U.S., a treatment he said his peers experienced as well. People were so cruel to him, he said he started lying about his veteran status on job applications. Like having a criminal record, he said it was hurting his chances of being employed.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, a member of the Marine Corps Reserve, said that veterans are now treated better than they used to be, in large part due to the efforts of Vietnam vets. They made a conscious effort to turn the public perception of veterans around, he said.<\/p>\n

There is still room for improvement when it comes to Native veterans though, if you ask Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wish that over time things would change,\u201d he said. \u201cBut from what I\u2019ve seens over the years, especially watching this election, I can see this country is still dragging our feet when it comes to certain things, especially with Native people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan spoke briefly about how he hopes to make things better for Alaska Native veterans by passing the Alaska Native Veterans Land Allotment Equity Act, a piece of legislation he is sponsoring. If passed, the act will extend eligibility for Alaska Native veterans who missed the chance to apply for the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act because they were fighting in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

SHI President Rosita Worl also promised to help Alaska Native veterans during the event Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are going to live in the hearts of our people,\u201d she told the panelists. \u201cI promise you that we are going to write about you. \u2026 We are going to stand by you in a way that we never stood beside you in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been more than five decades since Fred Bennett and 27 other young men left Hoonah, headed for the jungles of Vietnam. Like many of his peers, Bennett had never left his village at the time. He hardly knew why the U.S. was fighting a war half a world away. But that didn\u2019t stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2804"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}