Post by Warork on Apr 4, 2016 18:29:15 GMT
This man is Joe Medicine Crow-High Bird of the Whistling Water clan of the Crow tribe of the American Plains Native Americans. He was born in October of 1913 in Montana and raised by his grandparents on a reservation at a place called Lodge Grass.
His grandfather, Yellowtail, raised Medicine Crow to be a warrior. The training began when Medicine Crow was just 6 or 7, with a punishing physical regimen that included running barefoot in the snow to toughen the boy's feet and spirit.
He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Anthropology and was the first member of the Crow tribe to earn a Master's degree.
When World War II started, he left the reservation to fight in the US Army. During his time fighting in Europe, he earned the distinction of becoming the "last War Chief of the Crow tribe." In order to earn the title of War Chief, a Crow warrior must perform a series of tasks in combat.
1. Lead a victorious War party
"During one particularly nasty portion of the battle for the Rhine, Medicine Crow's commanding officer ordered the Native American warrior to take a team of seven soldiers and lead them across an field of barbed wire, bullets, and artillery fire, grab some dynamite from an American position that had been utterly annihilated, and then assault the German bunkers and blow the fucking ass out of them with TNT...He charged out, evaded an endless rain of fireballs, shrapnel, and misery, grabbed the TNT from a supply crate while tracer rounds zipped past his head, and then charged balls-out towards some German machine gun nests while carrying an armload of ultra-high explosives. He somehow reached the wall in one piece and blasted a hole in the Siegfried Line so the infantry could advance. Medicine Crow received a Bronze Star for this action, and his squad did not lose a single man in the battle."
2. Take an enemy's weapon from him
3. Touch an enemy without killing him
"Joe Medicine Crow's scouts were ordered to flank around through a back alley and get behind the German fortifications. Well, as this shit was going down, Medicine Crow got separated from his unit, and while he was in the process of sprinting through some German family's backyard a random Nazi jackass stepped out from behind the wall with his rifle at the ready. Joe didn't see this dude until the last second, and ended up running right the fuck into the guy...
...He let the guy live, taking the German (and his rifle) as a prisoner of war."
4. Steal and enemy's horse from him
"Of all the shit on this borderline-impossible list, this is the one that seems like it would trip up the most people these days. But, no shit, in early 1945 Joseph Medicine Crow stole 50 horses from a group of fucking German officers.
The story starts with Joe and his men on a scouting mission deep behind enemy lines. While surveying the landscape for enemy troop movements, Medicine Crow's small team of recon experts just happened to come across a small farm where some senior members of the German officer staff were holed up – along with a group of awesome thoroughbred race horses.
So, naturally, Joe had to steal them.
In the early hours of the morning, Joseph Medicine Crow, dressed in his fucking U.S. Army uniform, snuck past the sleeping guards armed only with a rope and his Colt 1911 .45-caliber service pistol. He found the best horse in the group, tied the rope into a makeshift bridle, mounted the horse bareback, and then gave a super-fucking-loud Crow war cry as he tried to herd as many goddamned horses out of the corral as possible before the Nazis started firing bullets at him. Hauling ass through though the German countryside in the dead of night, Joseph Medicine Crow sang a Crow war song while German officers ran outside in their underwear taking potshots at him with their Lugers.
This shit is so crazy you couldn't even make it up."
He was also made a Knight in the French Legion of Honor, received three honorary PhDs, authored nearly a dozen books on military history, stayed married to the same woman for over 60 years, and has been the official historian for his tribe for the last fifty years. In August of 2009 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest honor awarded to American civilians – for his combined military service and all the work he has done to help improve the lives of the people of the Crow people. The 95 year-old Medicine Crow personally led the ceremonial dance after the ceremony.
With his prodigious memory, Medicine Crow could accurately recall decades later the names, dates and exploits from the oral history he was exposed to as a child, Viola said. Those included tales told by four of the six Crow scouts who were at Custer's side at Little Bighorn and who Medicine Crow knew personally. Yet Medicine Crow also embraced the changes that came with the settling of the West, and he worked to bridge his people's cultural traditions with the opportunities of modern society. His voice became familiar to many outside the region as the narrator for American Indian exhibits in major museums across the country.
"He really wanted to walk in both worlds, the white world and Indian world, and he knew education was a key to success," said Viola, who first met Medicine Crow in 1972 and collaborated with him on several books.
His Crow name was "High Bird," and he recalled listening as a child to stories about the Battle of Little Bighorn from those who were there, including his grandmother's brother, White Man Runs Him, a scout for Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.
He died in his home in Montana yesterday at the age of 102.
Rest in Peace, you magnificent specimen of American heroism.