Native Americans in World War II - Critical Press Media

to go and even talk to one of them for these sexual acts that othersoldiers did, because for that reason is why we were over therefighting, just for that thing. And I think [our men's] prideexceeded all that. The whole division was thataway. If I wouldhave gotten a complaint I would have had to act on it by going tothe next officer in advance and advising him of it.I can say this about some of these people who come back fromother wars all depressed and not able to handle it. I can say this –no doubt we went through things as bad as they ever dared to gothrough, not once but numerous times. We never had problems inthose days of dope and narcotics. Now occasionally we wouldhave a problem of drinking because we drank anything we couldget our hands on or could make and became intoxicated. Thatwas one of the things we expected but we handled it. We did nottake no kind of dope or narcotics or smoke any kind of crazystuff, because that would have only caused us to get killed. Wewouldn’t have been able to act and react like a normal soldierwould. And I feel like the people in Vietnam and North Koreaand over there that so much dope was available to them andprobably that is how a lot of them got started on it. They werejust being victims of being over there and the stuff was availableto them. That is what fried their brain.Now, about those who have just returned and have had a real hardtime handling some of these acts of war: well, to begin with, thosepeople want somebody to feel sorry for them. They should growup and be a grown person and realize that these things happen inwar and know it and see it as it is. [They should] not be saying“Oh, I saw this and I feel so bad because I saw this … thishappened with me.” That is a normal expected thing [in war] forthese things to happen and they should not take it as “Oh, poorme.”There were so many people that came back from there that wasnot affected by it, only these very few. If you will check into it,you are gonna find out that most of them are on dope, wantsomebody to feel sorry for them, or they are looking for somekind of government handout.34