There was seven of us from Gordon's reserve that joined the army together, the chief and six of us from the reserve. During the war it wasn't bad. The thing is, I came from a residential school. I was there for eleven months before I joined the army. In fact, the army was better than the residential school. You went there and were part of an organization that didn't discriminate for some reason. And most First Nation's people have the same opinion that you were never discriminated against, you were always there with your comrades or whatever. Like nobody ever called me Howard, I was always called Andy, because my last name was Anderson, never anything else but Andy. In fact when I was home before I went to school I was called Shamrock. My mother said there was a shamrock on the back of a shirt that she picked up from somewhere, and that is when my auntie said, "oh we'll call him Shamrock". When I went to school that's what I told them, my name is Shamrock!
We went to basic training, my cousin and I. I followed my cousin because he was five years older then I was, so I just followed him around, I was 16. Our chief was in the army in the First World War, so he wanted to go into the Second World War and he came to pick us all up. There was sports going on in Punichy, and they were recruiting right in Punichy in a curling rink. They ended picking seven of us, so we went and joined the army. I was the last one there to go in and the guy kind of looked at me and said, "you're kinda young aren't you?" And the old chief said, "yeah, but he's damned good and strong," and that was the extent of the conversation. They never turned me down or anything, they just took me through.

From there I went to Vernon, B.C., I spent about five to six months in Vernon because I had an operation that kept opening up. They put me to work too soon. From there to Red Deer, Alberta, that's where we had an experience. Our troops wouldn't go on parade that morning, we didn't know what we were doing we just said we weren't going on because they weren't feeding us good enough. The captain came in and said "You know what you guys are doing". And we said, "yeah, we're not going on parade till we get something decent to eat," so he made us stand by our beds and told us, " Look outside the window," so we looked outside the window. And here were all these guys standing around our hut with guns. We couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. He said, "it's called mutiny, because you're refusing to go out on the Parade Square. You should go out there, on the Parade Square and then tell them that you don't want to do it. You don't stay here and say you're not going to go out there because that's mutiny, by not doing what your told". He didn't do anything to us, the Colonel came and he said, " I hear you're not satisfied with the meal". So he went into the kitchen to see what we were eating and he came back and said, "You'll get a different meal, and you'll go on parade," he said, "I wouldn't eat the damned stuff myself". But we came close to getting into trouble.

From Red Deer we went to England, went to Norfolk Virginia to get on a boat. We were the only Canadians that went into the states to get on a boat. We were on the boat for a hell of a long time they had a bunch of empty barrels they were telling us once we got over to England "Your boat is full of barrels because it got shot at a few times".

There was one old guy, a little older then I was from Daystar. We were on the same boat going overseas, and he always had a crown and anchor board or a paper and all these guys were standing around this table, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they were standing there. So I poked my head in, and he looked up and said, "Shamrock what you doing here?" I said, "I'm going overseas". It turns out they were gambling.

We stayed there quite a while (England) we used to have to do a lot of training and running around and everything like that to make sure that we knew what we were doing. I used to drive a truck, mostly I'd drive motor bikes. And old Hitler said while we were overseas in France, Belgium and Holland, "Give all those Canadians a motor bike, and they'll kill themselves, we won't have to shoot them". And that was his attitude that's how bad we were for driving around in motor bikes.

Another guy was telling me when Richardson had passed away, "you were riding motor bikes?" and I said, "Yeah". He said, "Did you ever hear what Hitler said," I said, "I heard one about giving them a motor bike and the Canadians will kill themselves," he said, " I heard that one, but there is another one. Give a Canadian a motor bike and a bottle of wine and put Berlin out of bounds and they will be there right away".
The army was good, good training. And it is still is, you take that Bold Eagle program that they have, it's really good.

Currently we are working on getting compensation, in 1942 the government added another law into the Indian Affairs laws that they have, and they called it 35b. It states that if any Treaty Indian coming back from the war had any money coming, it had to go to Indian Affairs. We could not go to Veterans Affairs to do this. We were there trying to get money from Veterans Affairs. We had one guy his name was Irvin Thompson from down south, he wanted to get the money to start a business, the six thousand dollars. But he lived in Regina, so he went to the Veterans Affairs and told them, "I don't live on the reserve, can I get this money?" And as far as Indian and Veterans Affairs were concerned any Indian that wanted to get off the reserve could, but he couldn't. They wouldn't give him the six thousand, they said, "You have to go and see your Indian Agent". So he went back to his reserve to see his Indian Agent and he said, "We can't give you anything, you're not living on the reserve". So he got nothing. He learned welding while he was in the Army and that's what he wanted to do, start a business in welding but he got nothing.
There was another one in Vancouver that wanted to take that $2320 that we got, and wanted to go to school, but he couldn't. The Indian Agent told him, "I'll buy you a boat, you can go fishing". But he wanted more education and they wouldn't give it to him. They said you can go to Indian and Veterans Affairs but you couldn't, you weren't allowed to.

They gave you the money but you had to get the land on the reserve, I got it on the reserve (land) and we got it for ten years. Some of them got a certificate of possession which makes a hell of a fight on the reserve, because the people who don't have it are mad because the veterans got it and they can give it to their sons or daughters or whoever, and pass it down. And that's where Indian Chiefs should get after Indian affairs and say, "look, we want to get paid for those years that you've had this land". Some guys have had it for fifty or sixty years now. Since 1945 they've had that land. So they (bands) should be getting compensation for it because they can't use it. And the people should be getting compensated but they're not. But there, I can't get involved that's a different scenario all together from what we're doing. We're coming close is what we're doing, but they're not going back far enough. In my statement of claim I'm saying that they should go back to 1942 when they changed the law. Not to February 2000 like they're telling us they are, and I'm telling them the young people are going to come at you. If we get the money you're going to have to pay the other guys, they'll come at you cause they went without.
And the guy said, "What are you going to do with the money if you get it, you're asking for $425,000. What will you do if you get that?" I said, "I'll give a portion of that to my kids, all my children will get a portion, they went without too, not only me and my children. But my family went without, so they should be getting something is my way of thinking".

Ernie started about 1982, we were looking at it when I got in '76 and '77 when I was Chief of the veterans then, but we had no money. We only had an organization in the south. So I worked with the North Battleford and Prince Albert areas to start putting it together. So we finally, eventually got everything together. So the next guy after me got a lawyer to do a report from the archives on Saskatchewan First Nation Veterans. And why they never gave it out we have no idea, it sat until I came back in '94 then we found it and we passed it around. So I'm doing it for across Canada now, I'm not just doing for Saskatchewan. I've got to work across Canada; I've been across Canada now three times doing interviews. So it's not just Saskatchewan, we're doing it for everyone.

The reason they were getting enfranchised was because an Indian couldn't join the army. So Indian Affairs said to enfranchise them, then you won't get yourself into trouble.

I've heard about a couple people from the Manitoba - they got conscripted. The Chiefs' dad from Gordon was getting conscripted until they found out that he was an Indian and they let him go.

In the First World War an Indian couldn't go to the Air Force or the Navy, the only thing they would allow you to join was the Army. You were restricted at what you could do. Right now I am finding people that had to use their language for the army to pass messages across. And that I am working on now; I found so far three, they're all dead. So I'm trying to get writings and stories about them. So I have found three that have been used in that fashion. So we are always working on something, trying to get something going, putting things together. Right now we are getting a lot of letters from the Ministers and the Members of Parliament supporting what we are doing. They are writing letters, we're not getting enough to make it pass in Parliament yet and that's what Veterans Affairs wants us to do.