"injuns and $9 a month: That was '94 army"

[David]

[Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1966]

The army was different in 1894. The Indians were peaceful and soldiers were discharged with time off for good behavior. That's how Fredrick W. Fraske, 93, of 3746 N. Spaulding av., remembered it yesterday when the Veterans Administration identified him as one of six surviving veterans of the American Indian wars.

But Fraske never fought any Indians' they never attacked him, he said. "We were all prepared for it. That's the whole thing in a nutshell, being prepared for it.," he said. He added that if he had shot an Indian at that time, "they would have tried me for murder."

"The Indians weren't bad eggs, not more than anyone else, but they've been abused. They were very fine people," Said Fraske. "We had no serious trouble with them."

Fraske said he joined the army on Feb 22, 1894, in a recruiting station on Madison street in Chicago because he needed a job to help his mother support a family of seven. He was 22 years old. Later, he was assigned to Fort D.A. Russell, near Cheyenne, Wyo., as a first aid man and a litter bearer with company F of the 17th infantry.

"Cheyenne was quite a wild town," Fraske recalled. "They'd shoot the lights out. It was a wild place and the unloading station for cattle."

Soldiers were paid $9 a month, with a $1 raise each year, he said. Altho enlistments were for five years, Fraske said, the law stipulated that a soldier "with excellent character" could ask for discharge after three years and three months of service.

Fraske returned to Chicago after his discharge for good behavior on the minimum service. He worked as a painter and decorator in Chicago until he was 65, when union rules prohibited him from climbing scaffolds. Then he worked as a plant guard for the Salerno-Megowan Biscuit company until he retired at 88.

The VA noted that the Indian fighters are the smallest band of veterans in the nation and the oldest.

The other survivors are Reginald A. Bradley, 99, of Oakland, Cal; Harry E. Brockman, 92, of Taneyville, Mo.' Charles C. Jones, 93 of Cedar Rapids, Ia; William Sutphin 98 of South Boston, Va.;and Griffith C. Williams, 89 of Coon Rapids Minn.

Today is the 90th anniversary of the massacre of Gen. George Custer of the 7th cavalry and his men at the Little Big Horn river in Montana. The years from 1860 through 1898 constitute the period officially designated as the Indian Wars.

[Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1966]