Native Americans in World War II - Critical Press Media

helped me to keep going; you would be surprised at how it willhelp you. I have never told my family and [only told] very fewother people.There are a lot of things I did [in the war] that I am very ashamedof and I wish I had never done. I have two medals from Franceand two medals from Belgium. I am 74 years old, The Big Manonly knows how long I am going to be here.What you do with this [conversation] is your business, as long asyou don’t give it to somebody to sell to make money off – I don’twant that to happen – otherwise you do what you want to do withit. Any money to be made of it I want it to go to some Veteran’sorganization.I have never been late on any payments, most of the time I pay inadvance. I have been out of work lots of times, but I still makemy payments.Buck Speaks, Day TwoThey always called me Buck; I think that was a white man’simitation of an Indian name. My parents named me John Franklinafter some of my grandparents.We never had much fun when I was growing up. One of the bestthings I can remember was that we camped along creeks andrivers and streams, preferably where there was fresh springs. Weworked for the local farmers around, the well established farmers,seems like most of them were German descent. We worked forthem from dark to dark, then we always had trouble collectingmoney from them. They would always say that we owed themmore than what we made.Consequently, we would end up raiding their chicken houses,meat houses, and steal whatever we could just to live and eat. Ofcourse that would work for a while and finally they would catchus and call the local sheriff out and he would run us out of thecounty. So we would go further down the road and go work foranother, and that story would just make the whole circle like that.Some of my bunch of people all during the circle of years, a lot of30