The Warrior Tradition

The Warrior Tradition: National film features soldiers from Sisseton and Eagle Butte.

FREE SCREENING Friday, Nov. 1, 6pm MT The Warrior Tradition Features Q&A with Francis Whitebird and others SDPB Black Hills Studio 415 Main Street, Rapid City

SDPB1: Monday, Nov. 11, 8pm (7 MT)

During World War I, not all Native Americans were even citizens of the United States, let alone eligible to be drafted. Yet, more than 12,000 indigenous men volunteered. Even in Vietnam, an unpopular war, 90 percent of the 42,000 Native people who served were volunteers. Why would Native men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands?

The new documentary The Warrior Tradition tells the inspiring, complicated stories of Native American warriors from their own points of view – stories of service and pain, of courage and fear.

The documentary features interviews with local warriors Dewey Bad Warrior (Cheyenne River Sioux, Itazico Band), Geri Opsal (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) and Robert Dunsmore (Lakota).

Navajo Marine code talkers on duty at Bougainville, Solomon Islands, c. December 1943

WNED-TV also commissioned video essays by Native American producers, including Minnie’s War Bonnet, by filmmaker Yvonne Russo (Sicangu Lakota) – a tribute to Minnie Hollow Wood, a woman warrior who fought in major battles like the Battle of Little Bighorn. She was the first Lakota woman warrior to be honored with a sacred War Bonnet, one of the highest honors of war, peace and valor. See it at: PBS.org/WNED/warriortradition

Elizabeth Perex, a member of North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians