Ever
since I got into the military I had an ambition to get into that regardless
of where or what branch of service I was involved. Discipline was the main thing
that was given unto you, whether you liked it or not. Your nose against the
wall, I had to clean the toilet bowl several times. I enjoyed it I knew what
I had entered. Especially when we seriously started training for the invasion;
using live ammunition. It was tough but mind you when you're young especially
when you're a Native person with white people, I was the only Indian in this
white Army. Well, I had one Indian friend from eastern Ontario somewhere. He
was a smart little fellow, I liked him. I took my training in Dundurn to start
with, that was 1942 I finished in about 4 weeks there, then I was sent to Fort
Williams and Port Arthur to do the other part of the training. It was there
that I changed to becoming a Sapper instead of an infantryman. From there I
finished training just north of Thunderbay. Then I was sent to Chilliwack, British
Columbia where we built the school of military engineering. It was an ordinary
school with regular hours, and if you were a bad boy you got sent into the guardroom
and if it continued back in the guardroom. And if you're still bad then you
got thrown in the black hole and got bread and water. It was a form of punishment,
but it's not to damage your wellness it was so that you would learn to obey.
So that was alright, if you deserved it you earned it. And if you're a good
boy you got the hell out of there. It was alright, I liked it. It's like monias
(white men) guys wasichu I call them in Sioux, and I was right in there ahead
of them. I was only 25 when I was there. After that we finished this combine
operations deal. We were broken into different field companies; mine was the
18th field company engineers, combat engineers. We stayed as a group until after
D-Day, after the invasion in France. We stuck together until I left the unit
and I got wounded. One of my friends still lives in Langley, B.C. He got wounded
at the same time as I did. What happened was the Germans were in the little
town of Westkins, Holland trying to disrupt the Canadians. It was a mess there,
flooded and everything. We had to sleep in water. I think I'm doing most of
the talking, well I'm just trying to tell what I went through. As far as my
health went I was never sick. I was a well-fed hound dog. I went in with my
nistaw, my brother-in-law he went in (the Army) ahead of me. He went in 1939,
and I went in 1942. Then he came home three of four months ahead of me. He passed
on about three years ago now; he was in the artillery. His name was Angus, I
don't know where he got that name from but I think it was from the Indian agent.
He looked like a Scotsman, maybe that's why he got that name. When I was over
in Westkins we went in on assault at about seven-thirty in the morning. We blew
some obstacles to let the few tanks we had through for the infantry. They went
through and our job was finished, it didn't take us more than five minutes from
the time we left the post and the time we set our charges to blow these obstacles.
We synchronized our watches, pulled out the igniter and got out of there fast.
They didn't need us anymore so that's when we took refuge. We went in this place
that was about the size of an ordinary granary, but it was built underground
with cement walls. Whatever it was came in there, about three feet inside the
door, it exploded and our friends that were sitting opposite were all mangled
up. I was sitting across from the door when I thought that if something were
to come through the door it would explode right there. I got up and went and
sat in the corner and all of a sudden it was like someone slapped me over the
ears, I was out like a light. I got knocked out, that was between 8 and 9 o'clock
in the morning I laid there unconscious and then I felt a person, it was Lance
Corporal Neil he said, "Are you alright?" I said I didn't know, then
he asked, "can you move?" I told him I would try so I moved my legs
they were okay. By that time about 4 feet of the smoke had cleared from the
ground up, it was gunpowder smoke, I looked over and all of my friends were
just mangled. So we managed to crawl out of there and went to a first-aid post.
There was a jeep there; it was an officer's jeep and was still running. The
commander was hit, there was a driveway there and he used to drive a half-track
but his legs were all gone, he was bleeding everywhere. We went in to the first-aid
post, they took a look at us wrote something down on a piece of paper and put
it around our necks. They told us to get onto this 3-ton truck. We got on and
traveled all night to Belgium. The Canadians had taken over a hospital there,
I believe it was a 12 Canadian General Hospital. The doctor there told me that
I was suffering from a severe concussion of the brain. It wasn't until two days
later that I started to feel it, I could feel my body wasn't right. I stayed
there for three months, losing weight. I weighed 170 lbs. when I went into the
army, when I got out I only weighed 114 lbs. I was skin and bones. It took about
six to eight weeks of intensive training to put me back on my feet. I never
went back to my unit.
