July 11, 2019
VFW 9061 attends special ceremony
By Logan Davis
The bond between soldiers who fought on the battlefield together is an unbreakable one. That bond is even stronger when one warrior saves the other. That bond led the Sisseton-Wahpeton Tribe to adopt Lt. General Claude “Mick” Kicklighter into their tribe last week.
Gen. Kicklighter was honored and adopted into the Sisseton Wapheton Sioux Tribe during that tribe’s annual ‘Wacipi’ celebration because Kicklighter saved the life of a Sisseton Wahpeton Lake Traverse tribal member, Woodrow Wilson Keeble, during the Korean War. Keeble was one of the highest decorated soldiers ever to don a military uniform.
The Vietnam War took the lives of 58,148 Americans and wounded over 304,000 more. That is not counting the ones who came back to their homelands and suffered from the mental anguish and memories of the horror and fell into the lifelong trauma of PTSD and after-effects of Agent Orange.
VFW Post 9061 and Auxiliary of Fort Berthold was invited by that tribe to attend their annual pow wow and celebration as one of the color guards last weekend. Many local VFW Post 9061 members took the journey and they all were exhilarated by the emotional tribute to Gen. Kicklighter and all veterans from every war. When VFW Post 9061 Quartermaster Delmar Crowsbreast returned from the trip on Sunday evening to his home in Parshall, he reflected on the experience as a veteran and one who has known the battlefield first hand. Crowsbreast is himself a recipient of the Purple Heart being wounded in the Persian Gulf War.
Gen. Kicklighter was honored and adopted into the Sisseton Wapheton Sioux Tribe during that tribe’s annual ‘Wacipi’ celebration because Kicklighter saved the life of a Sisseton Wahpeton Lake Traverse tribal member, Woodrow Wilson Keeble, during the Korean War. Keeble was one of the highest decorated soldiers ever to don a military uniform.
The Vietnam War took the lives of 58,148 Americans and wounded over 304,000 more. That is not counting the ones who came back to their homelands and suffered from the mental anguish and memories of the horror and fell into the lifelong trauma of PTSD and after-effects of Agent Orange.
VFW Post 9061 and Auxiliary of Fort Berthold was invited by that tribe to attend their annual pow wow and celebration as one of the color guards last weekend. Many local VFW Post 9061 members took the journey and they all were exhilarated by the emotional tribute to Gen. Kicklighter and all veterans from every war. When VFW Post 9061 Quartermaster Delmar Crowsbreast returned from the trip on Sunday evening to his home in Parshall, he reflected on the experience as a veteran and one who has known the battlefield first hand. Crowsbreast is himself a recipient of the Purple Heart being wounded in the Persian Gulf War.
