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Community Remembers Native American Marine
(May 16, 2011) |
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 YAKIMA,
WA (MCN - 5/12/2011) — Past sprawling orchards, rusting
automobiles and tangles of graffiti is the Yakama Nation
Native American community of White Swan. It was here that
Lance Cpl. Joe Jackson, surrounded by drugs, gangs and
poverty, beat the odds.
At the end of a gravel road,
a stone's throw from White Swan High School is the peach
two-story house where Jackson grew into adulthood. He was
placed there at the age of 12 after the state deemed his
mother unfit to raise him safely. A week after Easter Sunday
every oak in the front yard wears a yellow ribbon and an
American flag flies at half-mast on the pole Jackson helped
his foster-father erect.
The next day, Jackson's
remains will arrive at the Yakima Air Terminal as veteran
bikers of the Patriot Guard Riders, a cadre of first
responders and a detail of local 4th Tank Battalion Marines
stand by on the tarmac in his honor. The 22-year-old was
killed by an improvised explosive device blast in
south-central Afghanistan while patrolling with his fellow
1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment Marines, April 24.
Shawn Marceau, who over the years became “dad” to
Jackson, walks along the barbed-wire fence that separated
his foster son from everything that could have ruined him.
The Yakama Nation Indian Reservation, surrounded by the
picturesque mountains and fields of the Yakima Valley, can
be a tough place to grow up.
“A reservation is no
different from South Central, from the Bronx, you know, any
ghetto or housing project in the world,” said Marceau, a
member of the Blackfeet Tribe. “And yet to come out of that
on top, it is profound the way this young man grew up and
became a Marine.”
Marceau describes the small patch
of land that stretches from the scarred wooden posts he and
his foster-son used to throw knives at to the edge of the
gravel drive-way as an “oasis in a combat zone.”
“Here was safe, right here. Joe knew he could come here,” he
said at the edge of his property. “You look over the fence
and you see the signs of danger that walk up and down these
roads all the time.”
Gang graffiti strings its way
around the derelict construction crumbling across from the
Marceau home. A stranger once leapt out at Marceau from
behind it. The former Marine, like many in an area where
restaurateurs must post signs reminding patrons not to carry
their firearms into bar areas, routinely carries a concealed
weapon. His attacker fled followed by police sirens.
A saying passed around within Native American circles:
“We're taught to survive, not succeed.” It was a saying
Marceau taught his son to reject. The strength that comes
from native identity was the key to making sure his son grew
up right, he explained. A preteen Jackson, however, entered
his foster home unsure of who he was.
“He was raw,
he was trying to be, for lack of better words, a gangsta,
trying to be a thug," recalled Marceau. “I just told him,
‘It's OK to be Indian.'”
Over the years Jackson found
his place not in a gang, but in a tribe. He won a guitar
during a trip to Las Vegas, sanded off the varnish and wood
burned elk and eagles onto the body. Later, after Marceau
brought back tourist-quality warrior figurines from the
Grand Canyon, a young Jackson set about outdoing them using
clay, leather, wood and feathers. Native painting, dance and
flute followed as creative expression became the Gila River
Indian's most visible connection to tribal culture.
It was that same culture that so valued military service.
“Our ancestors are all warriors. They fought for
their land, for their people,” explained Marine veteran
Patrick Luke, a member of the Yakama Warriors Association
who served in Beirut. “They were brought up to do what's
right; this is a teaching that's passed on when they are
small.”
When those traditions meet, the warrior
culture and the importance of doing what's right, the end
result is often military service. In fact, Native Americans
have the highest record of service per capita when compared
to other races. The past is the past they say, and America
is their land. Her wars are theirs.
Luke was among
the drummers at Jackson's Yakama Seven Drums funeral service
-- a 36-hour marathon of singing, music, dance and
remembrance held in the gym of the high school Jackson
graduated from. As mourners came and went at all hours of
the day and night, two Marines in crisp dress blues stood
guard over Jackson's casket at parade rest in two-hour
shifts.
Sgt. Joseph Stordahl met Jackson in 2009 as
his recruiter. He remembers a young man who wasn't afraid to
be different and wanted to be a grunt like his foster
father.
“When I first went to his house he was
wearing this gi karate outfit with a black belt and going to
town on a bass guitar,” he said, after a shift standing
guard over Jackson's remains. “Most Marines you meet, you
know of their family, but I actually knew his family. I had
to be here.”
The ceremony revolved around sets of
prayer songs meant to “light” the way for Jackson, said one
mourner. As the drummers and singers played and danced in
the White Swan High School gym, drummers and singers played
and danced along “on the other side,” he explained. Such
ceremonies have been a part of native life since before
written history. The tribe rarely allows outsiders to
attend, but readily welcomed the Marines.
The final
song in the first set has various names depending on which
tribe sings it, but most know it as the “Warrior's Song.”
“When our warriors went off into battle they would
go on their own horses,” said James Kiona, a Marine veteran
and member of the YWA. “The people would see that after the
battle some horses would come back without their riders.”
A Catholic Rosary service capped off the tribal
ceremonies before Jackson's remains were taken into Yakima
for military honors and burial, May 4. A convoy of police,
Patriot Guard Riders and mourners stretched more than a mile
along the 45-minute drive from the reservation to Tahoma
Cemetery.
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Navy Lt. Cmdr. Danny Purvis, a chaplain for 2nd Marine Division, delivers the invocation for U.S. Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, as they mourn the loss of two Marines during a memorial ceremony in Sangin, Afghanistan May 4. The ceremony was for Lance Cpls. Joe Jackson and Ronald Freeman, who were killed in action while conducting combat operations in support of International Security Assistance Forces and Operation Enduring Freedom.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Nathan McCord |
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Staff Sgt. Anthony Boswell, Jackson's
command escort from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, has lost
five Marines in his career, but never had the opportunity to
return one home. He met Jackson's remains at Dover Air
Field, Del., the waypoint for all servicemembers killed in
action, before accompanying him across the country and into
Yakima on a small charter plane.
“I never got to see
the pride and the understanding of a community pushing
through together,” said Boswell after riding across town in
Jackson's hearse while a small army of mourners followed.
“Watching the police blaze up and down the highway trying to
make sure everybody was stopped, everybody was pulled off to
the side of the road. There was no traffic allowed moving
around us. It was awesome. It was truly awesome to see the
respect that was being paid to this Marine.” |
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Boswell
had seen Jackson in passing around the battalion, but only
got to know him through the memories of his friends and
family. Lance Cpl. Isaac Green, another one of the
volunteers who guarded Jackson's remains, was his bunk mate
in boot camp.
“He just always would smile. It didn't
matter, even when the drill instructors were in his face,”
recalled the Company B, 4th Tank Bn. tank crew man and
Yakima native. “Most of our drill instructors couldn't even
keep a straight face around him. They had to walk away.”
Like most recruits, Green and Jackson heard the common
drill instructor speech about the solemn fact that some in
their platoon would deploy and die overseas. He never once
thought Jackson would be the one.
“It's a small
world. It's a small Marine Corps,” he said. |
Native American veterans salute as
USMC Lance Cpl. Joe Jackson's body is carried into the White Swan High School gymnasium for funeral services, May 2,
2011. Jackson was killed April 24, 2011 by an improvised explosive device blast in Afghanistan. Official Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Jad Sleiman |
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A chaplain's invocation kicked off Jackson's military burial
ceremony, led by the Marines of Yakima's 4th Tanks, before
the playing of taps and a 21-gun salute ended it. After
flags were folded and handed to Jackson's family, tribal
leaders took over to continue the burial in line with Native
tradition.
According to the Washaat faith, all life
comes from and eventually returns to Mother Earth. A tribal
leader called on family and fellow warriors to line up
before Jackson's open grave. At this ceremony, the Marines
were considered both.
The prayer songs began again
as a single bell rang on and on to a gentle |
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rhythm. Mourners pounded their hands along with the
ringing, along with the beating heart of the Mother.
Yakama warriors – Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine
Corps veterans – were at the head of the line
followed by over a dozen Marines in dress blues. |
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Each Marine clutched a sacred eagle feather in one
hand and a handful of dirt in the other. The Yakama warriors
threw their dirt on the casket before raising one hand to
wave and turned away. It was a wave goodbye, they said,
until they too arrive on the other side. The Marines
delivered their feathers, followed by their dirt. Each one
in turn delivered a slow, deliberate salute, rendered
without expectation of return.
Back at the Marceau
home Jackson's foster father keeps a cabinet full of his
foster son's artwork. His voice breaks, heavy with grief, as
he talks about the way Jackson gave away so much of it ahead
of what would be his first and only deployment as if he knew
he wasn't coming back.
Half-foot-tall hoop dancers
and warriors in various states of repair stand reminiscent
of an American culture older than the United States. To
Marceau, they're decaying reminders of a son strong in his
heritage and dedication to country.
“He left me
something to fix,” said Marceau as he held up a Blackfeet
warrior missing the lower half of his leg. “He served
everyone. Now, I can serve him.” |
By USMC Cpl. Jad Sleiman
Recruiting Station New York
Copyright 2011 | |
Reprinted from
Marine Corps News
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