Warrior will lead vet parade

[darrels joy]

Warrior will lead vet parade
By PHILIP FEROLITO
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC


TOPPENISH ? Yakama warrior Louis Cloud will don a war bonnet draped with eagle feathers and a white shirt trimmed with blue and red ribbons while leading a parade Saturday commemorating the 60th anniversary of Iwo Jima.

The 84-year-old Yakama tribal councilman ? who served in five major campaigns during World War II ? left Wednesday morning with 25 members of the Yakama Warriors Association for Sacaton, Ariz., where servicemen from all across the nation will converge.

The national gathering observes the Feb. 19, 1945, battle in which U.S. Marines captured Iwo Jima, an island between Japan's mainland and U.S. bases in the Mariana Islands. The island proved critical as an emergency landing strip for crippled B-52 bombers returning from bombing runs.

Before the island was captured, the brutal engagement left 6,821 American Marines, sailors and soldiers dead, along with more than 20,000 Japanese defenders.

In the end, however, Ira Hayes, an American Indian from Sacaton, would help raise the American flag over the island.

In memory of Hayes, Cloud will lead the parade while the rest of the Yakama Warriors serve as honor guards.

Yakama warrior Jake Mann, a Vietnam veteran, attended the annual ceremony in 2004, and was invited back this year with the group as special guests. Veteran and tribal councilman Ray Colfax will be honored as a Yakama dignitary.

Following Cloud, warriors will also don their signature ribbon shirts, black vests and war bonnets as well.

"That's a great honor to me, for that tribe down there to honor me," said Cloud, referring to the Navajo tribe.

Cloud was drafted in 1943, and first served in the Army as a paratrooper with the 551st Combat Battalion.

"I was one of those crazy Indians that jumped out of planes behind enemy lines," he said.

Cloud could have come home early in 1946, but signed up for a six-month stint in Berlin as an honor guard, protecting military officers and German scientists.

"We were trying to keep order with the Russians," he recalled. "The Russians wanted (the atomic scientists) real bad."

Cloud, whose medals of valor include the bronze star, said his last campaign was at the Elbe River in northwest Germany, where U.S. troops made a crossing on the river for the British.

"The British couldn't do it," he recalled. "We captured a whole army."

Ceremonies in Sacaton, 30 miles south of Phoenix, will also include a powwow, a massing of military colors, a military flyover and the dedication of a new POW/MIA memorial at a veterans park in Sacaton.

Before warriors left early Wednesday, tribal member Wendall Hannigan gathered them together outside the Yakama Nation Veterans Affairs building on Gunnyon Road, ringing a bell to start a sendoff prayer.

Noting Cloud's military service ? campaigns in Italy, France, Holland and Germany as well as the Battle of the Bulge ? Hannigan wished him and fellow veterans well on their 1,400-mile journey to Sacaton.

"He'll travel again ? not to go to war, but to be honored," Hannigan said before singing a longhouse song honoring veterans.

"We pray for the ones that are traveling on this trip," he said. "We pray for their families that will remain home."

After the prayer, warriors filed onto the Warrior Association's bus while others loaded up in private vehicles en route to Sacaton.

The Yakama Warriors Association is a nonprofit organization that works in conjunction with the tribe's Veterans Affairs Office. It's composed of more than 160 military veterans who help other veterans retrieve records from their military service. The group also holds ceremonial gatherings.


BRIAN FITZGERALD/Yakima Herald-Republic
Morris Miller, left, sees off Loren Corpuz and other veterans about to depart to Sacaton, Ariz., for the commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Iwo Jima landing in World War II.

[Jerry D]

God Bless Ira Hayes, the Code talkers and all the Native Americans of the people that served our countries Armies when the US Government tried so hard to eliminate all their ancestors in conquering the continent and taking their land. may their journey be swift and they all rejoice in the Memories of their fallen heroes and fellow veterans