Jocko Podcast - 45: Wooden Leg, Native American Warrior

Episode Date: October 19, 2016

0:00:00 - "Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer" - Book Review. 1:57:35 - Lessons Learned. 2:05:37 - Additional Thoughts.  Capable VS Comfortable. 2:17:05 - Dope Internet, Amazon, Onnit, and JockoStore stuff.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 45 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I often think that if I were an Indian, I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who adhered to the free open plains rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation. there to be the recipient of the blessed gifts of civilization with its vices thrown in without stint or measure. And that is a quote from a book called My Life on the Plains published in 1876 by a guy named General Custer who wrote that book or was published a few months before he died at the at the Battle of Little Big Horn

but we're not going to look at that book today even though that battle the Battle of Little Big Horn is something we'll definitely delve into there's a ton of lessons learned there you know a whole all those all the American soldiers were killed in this one unit of General Custers. There was no survivors from it. He lost like 200 guys, all of him, himself

included. And there was some survivors from some of the other companies that were along with him. There's a guy named Major Reno and another guy named Captain Bentine and they had people that survived in their company. Actually, a lot of their company survived, but

none of Colonel Custer, Colonel Custer's troops survived. And as I was thinking about doing that battle, because there's so many good lessons to learn about, a lot of lessons to learn about arrogance and overconfidence and splitting force, so there's a really bunch of good tactical lessons to learn from it. And as I dove into it,

I ended up coming across another firsthand account from an Indian. Now, I use the term Indian because instead of the term Native American, which is probably the, which is the correct nomenclature. But in this book that we're going to go over tonight, it's from a Native American who, name is Wooden Leg. And throughout the book, he calls himself an Indian. He calls all of his fellow Native Americans, calls them all Indians. So you're going to hear me call them Indians throughout this evening.

Now, what I'm... found though is as I wanted to learn more about the battle I started getting into the whole Native American what what they went through what they were like and that culture and so this book did a great job of kind of exploring that and this this Cheyenne warrior like I said named wooden leg and the name of the book is wooden leg a warrior who fought Custer. But like I said, that's actually a small portion of the book,

but it gives us some good insight as to what life was like for these Native Americans back on the plains in that transitional period, where they were going from being living open on the planes to getting moved on to reservations and some of the fighting that they did and how they grew up. Now, where this came from, there was the author of this book, who was a guy that was a doctor and served a few months as an agency, physician for the northern Cheyennes.

So that's the tribe that was allied with the Sioux Indians, and they were around and part of the annihilation of Custer. And this doctor, Dr. Marquis, actually learned the language. And so when he was up there living on the reservation, he would constantly ask, you know, hey, did anyone fight Custer? Was he around for these battles? Not just Custer, but he's specifically interested in that one since it was no eyewitness survivors from the American side. He wanted to find out what happened.

And as he interviewed all these different Indians, he eventually got to this guy, Wooden Leg. And I'll go to the book here. It says, Wooden Leg became the author's favorite narrator. It seemed that his lifetime biography should surround his special battle story so that readers might learn. what kind of people were the hostile Indians of that day. So this is, again, Marquis, the doctor living up on the reservation and working on people, and learned the language, communicated with him,

and one of his favorite old-time warriors that he talked to was this guy by the name of Wooden Leg. And I'll start with how he ended up with that name, Wooden Leg. And I'm going to the book. this crow Cheyenne Indian man was a wonderful traveler on foot even as a boy he could outwalk and wear down most of the young men who journeyed with him his capabilities in this regard were so noticeable that people said his legs must be made of wood since he never becomes tired then they fixed upon the name wooden leg I was also a youthful wonder in the matter of walking. By the time, and this is Wooden Leg himself talking. So he was describing someone else who is actually a relative of his, and here he's talking

about himself. By the time I was 15 years old, I could go all day following in the footsteps of my uncle wooden leg. I was tall and gaunt, and I grew taller in young manhood. Friends began jokingly to apply me the name of this endearing, of during, enduring uncle, who then had become a middle-aged or elderly man. I liked the name. I like the man who bore it

and I like the honor of comparison with him. I told my father I wished to be known as a wooden leg. It was a common custom to pass down names to junior relatives. My father told me that when the time was right he would confer that new name upon me. The time came when I was about 17 years old.

So that's where they all. The origin of his name comes from, and we're going to get to the part where he actually takes the full name and that becomes his name, Wooden Leg. It's after an eventful, we'll say an eventful time period. So here's a little bit about being raised out there against Cheyenne country. When I was six years old, I asked my father, will you give me a horse? Yes, you may have any horse in mine that you want, but you must catch him. he gave me a raw hide laryot rope. So there you go.

Yo, you want a horse? Cool. Here's a rope. Go catch one. He and my mother and some other people laughed about it, but I took the matter seriously. With the lariat looped and coiled, I went out among the herd to search for horses belonging to my father.

So he goes out, he finds a small pony, and eventually he got it, he gets it, he captures it. And when it quieted it down, I followed carefully along the line, talking soothingly until it allowed me to pat its neck. After a while, I got its mouth around the lower jaw, the loop of the rawhide according to the old Indian way of making a bridle. When it had calmed after this new advance, I began to make strokes on its back. Then I tucked the long coil into my belt the same as I had seen men do, and I climbed quickly upon the animal. It shied, and I fell off.

But I still had my rope. coiling from my belt as the pony moved away. I seized the tether and followed again its guidance to the coveted mount. More petting and soothing talk. Another attempt at riding. Off again. Before making a third try, I spent a long time at the gentle taming procedures. Nevertheless, the pony shied and then bucked after I had mounted it. But I grabbed its mane and stuck to my seat. Within a few minutes, I had control. I rode to my father's lodge. Yes, that is your pony to keep, he told me.

Bands of us boys went out at times on horseback to hunt wolves. We had only bows and arrows. We killed many wolves with arrows. My father had given me a good bow and a supply of arrows when I was nine or ten years old. We were then in Black Hills country. So, I mean, this is a... I know we have people in America definitely that still are hunting at a very young age, but it's pretty cool that you're six years old, breaking horses and then out hunting.

With bows and arrows, by the way, hunting the wolves. That's awesome. So back to the book, my mother said to me, we have no meat. Another boy and I set off to hunt. We were about the same age 15 years old. We each had on a shirt, leggings, and moccasins, all of buckskin or other skin. The leggings had no seed in them, as was the Indian way of clothing the lower limbs. We had no head coverings, nor any mittens for our hands.

Although we are accustomed to hardship, this was a cold day for us. We waded and wallowed through snow up to our knees and thighs. So, again, nowadays, we got smart wool hats and Goretex jackets. We just got it so easy. And here you go, you're in moccasins. And you got bare ass, you got a bear ass, and you're just out with some leggings on. Just getting after it in knee-deep snow.

Just hardcore, you know? Hardcore. Goes a little, well, they continue this hunt, and then back to the book, A deer jumped out instead of looking at us. The first shot from my rifle brought it down. We rushed it and cut its throat. We hurriedly cut open the body

and jammed our hands inside to get warm. Yeah. The Shoshonis, the crows, and the Pawnees were tribes we fought. most during my time of growing up to manhood. So this is another thing that he talks about a lot

in this book is that the Native Americans were fighting each other all the time. They were at war. They were at war with each other. And he talks about that a lot. Back to the book,

my own youthful warrior experiences were mostly in combat against the crows and the Shoshones. One incident out of many in this kind of warfare will show you how it was carried on. A band of Shoshonis came at night and stole some of our horses.

We were camped on a divide between the upper part of the Tongue River and the little big horn. Snow deep and winter weather. I was 16 years old. I went with the party of Cheyennes who took the trail of the thieves. After traveling all day and into the night,

we found a small camp of Shoshone's. Most of them, alarmed by their dogs, had fled when we made our attack upon them. But repeated shots kept coming from a single certain lodge. We concentrated our assault on this lodge. Two Cheyennes were killed and another one mortally wounded before we could suppress this destructive defense. White Wolf, 11 years older than I was than I was, and yet living as my neighbor on Tong River was the brave warrior who dealt the final blow to that Shoshone. White Wolf crept along the ground into the lodge. He had in his right hand a six-shooter. It was

totally dark in there and he fumbled about the interior seeking whomever he might find. His gun bumped into somebody and he pulled the trigger. Later developments revealed this was the only occupant of the lodge. The victim was an old man. He was the only Shoshone we killed in that fight so far as we could learn. But we won the battle and got back on our horses. We cut up the body of the old Shoshone man. We cut off his hands, his feet, his head.

We ripped open his breast and belly I stood there and looked at his heart and liver We tore down the lodge Built a bonfire of its contents and piled the remnants of the dead body upon this bonfire We stayed there until nothing was left but ashes and coals So these guys are getting after it They're definitely and what's really cool is like I didn't want to break up this but you know you've got an assault happening

You've got an assault happening this is the same this could be a, this could be a story about, you know, American soldiers going against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan or insurgents in Iraq where you're taking down a small village and there's people and there's enemy in there and there's a building and there's concentrated fire coming from there and you get a guy that low crawls up. I mean, this is, this is just straight warfare. I mean, it's amazing how that story could translate into almost any modern era with when you have guns. Except the part where they cut off the hands in the head. Yeah, except for the part where they cut off the hands,

cut off the feet, cut off the head, rip open the breast and the belly. Yeah. They're taking it to a different level right there. And, and, you know, I think it's,

he put that in there. I mean, he's, he's telling these stories, and it offers you an insight as to what their attitude was of what they were going to do if you got captured by him or,

yeah, it's on. Yeah. It's on. Back to the book, Little Wolf had been a big tribal chief, the most influential one for about two years

before that time. In his earlier manhood, he was for a long time chosen over and over again as the leading chief of the Elk Warrior Society. If during any time, any Cheyenne was looked upon as the bravest man of all, he was the man. He was never afraid to speak the truth. The people all believed in him. He was a gentle and charitable man, but if insulted to anger, he was likely to hurt somebody. In either disturbed or undisturbed mood, everybody knew he meant just what he said. He was my uncle by marriage, one of his two wives being a sister of my father. He used to tell me many thrilling stories, both at his lodge and my father's lodge. I recall one in particular when he had hand-to-hand combat with a Shoshonee. Each had a sheath knife. They grappled and

wrestled and slashed one another. Finally, Little Wolf pinioned the arms of the Shoshone. threw him to the ground, plunged upon him and stabbed him to death. He gave me a great deal of good advice, both as to warfare and as to how to carry myself uprightly as a man among my own people. My conduct all throughout my life has been influenced by his teachings, more than by those of any other preceptor except my own father. So that's Little Wolf. Little Wolf was the badass.

Little Wolf was the big badass. And I thought it was important to kind of talk about his characteristics. He spoke the truth. People believed him. He was gentle and charitable. But if he was angered, he was going to hurt you. So this is the guy that they choose as their leader. Back to the book.

I think my body grew more rapidly than my mind did. This is not uncommon for men and boys, right? Your body grows before your mind does, absolutely. Back to the book, by the time I was 18 years old, I was the tallest men of the tribe. I believe there were two who stood a little above me. Both of these were killed in the great battle against the soldiers of Custer. My friend, the white man doctor, measures me now at six feet two inches and weighs me at 235 pounds. So we're talking about a big dude.

Wooden leg was no joke. I don't know I grew up in New England and when you go to old houses in New England that were built in the 1700s I don't know if you know this but the ceilings are lower the doors are lower

because people were shorter like all people were shorter so can you imagine being where the average height is probably 5-5 and wooden leg is 6-2 monster guy so now they're he's talking a little bit about

just again this continuing on with his life living in the black hills here we hunted the game and the enemy crows and shoshones and here we lived in every way the life of the plains indians of those times it was not an idle existence we were busy much of the time fighting our enemies or gathering food and clothing and sheltering skins as we were camped on the lower tongue River when I was about nine years old, one morning a herald started to cry out, all of our horses are gone. There followed a lively stir among the young men, a party of them mounted on a few horses that had been overlooked by the raiders and hurried away on the trail. A thin snow helped them. In the late afternoon, they caught up with the lost herd, apparently abandoned. But after

a search of the vicinity, they discovered that somebody was in a canyon cave there. One of the Cheyennes crawled into the cave in an endeavor to verify the supposition. The verification came in the form of an arrow that hit him in the right eye. He quickly backed out. Everybody bring wood, the Cheyenne leader ordered. They built a fire at the cave's opening. With blankets, they fanned the flames and the smoke into the hole. The prisoners fanned outward and thrust sticks at the fire heap to push it away.

Bring more wood, the leader called. The one-sided contest went on until the two Crow-Indian men burst out. from the cave, almost suffocated and in desperation. The first one was beaten and stabbed a death by their surrounding Cheyenne's. The second one got past them, sprang upon one of their horses, and dashed away. The Cheyenne's pursued him. He happened to mount a slow animal, so it was not long before the chase developed into a beating by ponywips and handles.

The crow suddenly jerked his mount to his sandstill. At the same moment, he flashed out his sheath knife and made a vicious scyce. sideways stab. The blade buried itself in the breast of a Cheyenne who fell dead. The other Cheyenne's rushed upon the crow in a twinkling. He had received many death blows from various weapons.

Somebody scalped him, and they cut off his feet, hands, and head. Again, it's interesting. What do they do? They got a guy in a situation. You know, they got him trapped in a cave. How did they get him out of there? Well, what would we do nowadays? Oh, maybe we throw some tear gas in there. Well, what do they do? Build a fire? Smoke them out. a little bit more about the life of the Cheyennes.

Competitive sports used to interest us. Horse races, foot races, wrestling matches, target shooting with guns or arrows, tossing the arrows by hand, swimming, jumping, or other like contests were entered upon. In the tribe, such competition was usually between men representing the three warrior societies. So inside the tribe, there was three separate warrior societies.

like three different clubs basically back to the book these were the elk warriors the crazy dog warriors and the fox warriors if any Sioux tribe or big band camp jointly or big band jointly with us the matches were between representatives of the two tribes bets were made on every kind of contest

the stakes were of guns ammunitions bows arrows blankets horses robes jewelry shirts, leggings, moccasins, everything in the line of personal property. The betting always was on even terms. Articles were piled upon a blanket, matched articles in opposition to another. The winners took all and shouted over the victory. So these guys were heavily involved in competition, because competition makes you better.

This reminds me of the SEAL team's like, everything in the SEAL teams is a competition. I don't care what you're doing. Your buddy says, hey, you want to go for just a mellow run on the beach? You go, yeah, sure, no problem. And the next thing you're throwing up at the end because you're pushing each other so hard. Every time you get on the range, it's a shooting contest. Every time you go, everything you do is, you know,

you go for a skydive, oh, how close did you get to the T, you know, when you land? So everything is a contest, and that's how these guys are doing this. What keeps them sharp back to the book, a good wrestler and general strongman was Little Hawk. And so this one here, Little Hawk and a guy named Buffalo Hump and Brave Wolf, they go around and they meet up with another tribe. And they roll in and he says,

We need meat, they announced. Your drying poles are too full, and we think our wants can be supplied here. Little Hawk wants to wrestle for it. If anybody here can throw him, we shall not take any food from this lodge. Nobody wanted to accept this challenge. The young men took some meat and went on to another teepee.

There, they made the same. same kind of announcement and proposition. There, likewise, all the men present, feared to grapple with Little Hawk. And there are also the three joking robbers help themselves from the bountiful store. At the next TP, the transaction

was more complex. After some exchange of talk, the spokesman of the lodge said, Big Thigh is here. He says he will wrestle you. Now, I'll tell you right now, I don't want to wrestle big thigh, right?

Big thigh sounds like he's got some game. The conditions of the match were agreed upon. The two men stripped their breech cloths. A group of onlookers assembled. The group soon became a great crowd. Big thigh and Little Hawk appeared equally confident. Both of them rushed into the grapple. They tugged and shoved and tripped.

The advantage seemed to shift back and forth. The throng of spectators whooped and danced. There was some partisan cheering, but most of it was merely the expression of delight as witnessing this tribal championship battle. After several minutes of fierce and continuous struggling, Little Hawk began to weaken and wilt. Big thigh pinioned the arms of his antagonist and bore him face downward to the ground. God is back.

The victor sat astride the back of the vanquished and sprinkled handfuls of dirt upon him. He also picked up a folded blanket near nearby and used this as a soft club and pretense at beating into complete submission the defeatedly. little hawk. That's a legit jiu-jitsu match right there. Got the back, got the back mount. Yeah. Got the submission. Well, he took it a little far with the rolled-up blanket.

Yeah. Yeah, but it was still only a blanket. He was being cool about it. He didn't, you know, didn't cut his head, hands, and feet off. Yeah, that's for sure. So another thing that's interesting is just how they were organized and their leadership, the way they were set up. So here we go back to the book.

The Warrior Societies were the foundation of tribal government among the Cheyennes. That is, the members of the warrior societies elected the chiefs who governed the people. Every 10 years, the whole tribe would get together for the special purpose of choosing 40 big chiefs. These 40 would then select four past chiefs or old men chiefs to serve as supreme advisors to them and the tribe. there were not any hereditary chiefs among the Cheyennes. So that's a pretty cool system. I like that system. I think I like that system better than our system right now.

They end up with, they kind of elect 40 chiefs, and then from those 40 chiefs, those 40 chiefs take three more or four more to make the old men chief. So at one point, they decide that they're going to move camp, which they do from time to time, and they do.

the leaders in the morning, they make an announcement, and here it is. All Cheyenne's open your ears and listen. Tomorrow morning we move to Tongue River. Have your lodges down and yourselves and horses ready. The Fox Warriors will lead us. The next morning, as we all prepared for the move, the Fox Warriors assembled out forward in the direction of the intended movement. The old man heralded instructed them.

You are the leaders today. make all the people obey you make them stay in their proper places if any of them disobey our ordinary rules of travel you may pony whip them you may shoot their horses you may kill their dogs

you may break their guns or their bows you may punish them in any way that seems to you best except you are not allowed to kill any Cheyenne so that's one of the rules you're going to hear that throughout they're not allowed to kill each other no matter what

and you know this is um kind of an iron hand way of ruling hey if you get out of line on this road march we're going to do you're going to feel the pain so they're not going to get much resistance now speaking of weapons and you heard them talking about breaking bows and this is just kind of giving you some insight on what they use for weapons the arrow was the preferred weapon when on a tribal hunt in buffalo herd or when a large party were joined in pursuit each rider shot arrow after arrow into whatever animal was convenient to him during the tumult of the running chase. When it ended, he had one or two more arrows in various dead buffalo scattered over the area by the flight of the herd.

Every man kept his own arrows and always marked in some peculiar manner whereby they could be identified. So when the field was reviewed after the termination of the killing, he could find out which buffalo he had killed or had helped to kill. It could be learned in such instance which arrow was the fatal one and which were of little or no importance. Thus the claims to the skin and meat could be settled. In case of a disagreement, the chiefs decided to question. Gun bullets could not be distinguished from one another, so the guns were used only when one man was hunting alone

or when a small party of special friends hunted together. The guns also had to have powder and lead and caps, which we did not always have on hand. We could make arrows or we often recovered them from the dead animal. So that's just imagine you go to these big herd of buffaloes, a bunch of Indians go in there, they're shooting them with all these. They just shoot every animal you see you try and shoot it. And then eventually you find out which ones are dead. You check, hey, that arrow's mine.

Got them in the heart. I get some meat there. That's cool. So other people like me and you and, you know, 40 other guys, we're shooting. Just shooting. Ten arrows in there. Eight different guys shot this one. We all get it.

and then they can tell, oh, that one hit the heart. So you're the main guy, you know. Dang. You get the skin. Okay, other weapons. Spears were used by the Cheyennes. The long and slender points might be of metal, or they might be of stone or bone.

Great care was taken in its coloring and general design. The Sioux had knife sticks for fighting. These had long shafts the same as a spear, but instead of the attach point at the end, there were three blades at the shaft side so that's kind of a unique looking weapon it kind of sounds mad maxish a long spear with three knives sticking on it

yeah Hawaiian's kind of had that too a little different they put the shark the shark teeth so it's like a yeah it's pretty dope actually you don't want to get hit with the sharp teeth no no talking about a little bit of the dress the earrings of an Indian often indicated his tribal

stock a Cheyenne ear had but one piercing, only one ring and this ring was looped directly through or close up to the ear. The Sioux wore necklaces regularly in single strands. Eagle feathers stuck up from the back hair of many a Sioux. The number of such feathers worn by any one man was supposed to note the number of enemies he had killed. The Cheyennes never adopted this custom. All the best clothing was taken along with him when any warrior were to set out in search for a conflict. The articles were put into a special bag, ordinarily a beautifully beaded buckskin pouch, but perhaps a rawhide one, and this was slung at one side of this horse.

The bag also contained extra moccasins, beaded moccasins, war bonnets, paints, a mirror, special medicine projects, or anything else of this nature. If a battle seemed about to occur, the warrior's first important preparatory act was to jerk off all his ordinary clothing. He then hurriedly got out his fine garments. If he had time to do so, he re-braided his hair, painted his face in his own peculiar way, did everything needful to prepare himself for presenting his most splendid personal appearance. That is, he got himself ready to die. The idea of full dress and preparation for battle

comes not from a belief that it will add to the fighting ability. The preparation is for death in case that should be the result of the conflict. War bonnets were not worn by all warriors. In fact, there were only a few such distinguished men in each warrior society of our tribe. It was expected that one should be a student of the fight. art for several years or else that he'd be an unusually apt learner before he should put the crown of eagle feathers He then did so upon his own initiatives or perhaps because of the commendary

Urgings of his seniors the act meant a profession of fully acquired ability in warfare a claim of special accomplishment in using cunning and common sense and cool calculation coupled with the bravery attributed to all warriors. So if you want to get that big, badass headdress, I thought it's pretty interesting. You give it to yourself. Now people can tell you you deserve it, but you make the claim. You say, yep, I'm the man. And it's interesting. I'm going to read those again.

It means you have acquired ability in warfare in using cunning, common sense, cool calculation coupled with bravery. Very, very good definition of a warrior, right? Back to the book, The wearer was supposed never to ask mercy in battle. If some immature young man pretended to such high standing before it seemed to his companions that he ought to do so, he was twitted and shamed into awaiting his proper time.

I first put on my war bonnet when I was third, years old, 14 years after I had quit the roaming life. After a man had been accepted as a war bonnet man, he remained so throughout his lifetime. War chiefs and tribal chiefs ordinarily were war bonnet men, but this was not a requirement for these positions. Pure modesty might keep the bravest and most capable fighter from making the claim. also an admittedly worthy wearer of the war bonnet might not be chosen for or might refuse all official positions the head the feathered headpiece then was not a sign of public office it was a token of

individual and personal feeling as to his own fighting capabilities interesting it's interesting that he obviously fought about the fact that some guys were too humble to claim the war bonnet and he And he actually says some of the best and bravest and most capable, I don't deserve it. Yeah. Which is, which is in keeping with what we know about humility being the trait and the most critical trait of someone's success. Mm-hmm. And it's also interesting that some of the people that were great fighters weren't necessarily going to be good leaders. That's, that's a reality.

It's a reality to this day. here's a little bit about the way the way they treat each other fighting between Cheyenne's either men or women was forbidden by the tribal laws in case of a fight some chief near

at hand would call out warriors separate these fighters and whip them the warrior policeman then on duty would respond to the call a band of them would give such punishment as seemed to them fitting if the fighters renewed their strife they might have punishment added, might have their tepees torn down, their horses killed, property damage done to them in some other way, any suitable and sufficient punishment.

Except no policeman warrior nor anyone else could lawfully kill a Cheyenne. Pony whips, either the lashes or the heavy stick handles, were not customary attacking weapons in a personal fight. Cheyenne did not use fists as white people do. Not often did any two women fight. If they did, they merely scratched and pulled hair. It was more of a comic show than an alarming sight to see two women clawing each other. I never heard of any Cheyenne woman killing another nor maliciously killing a man, nor did the men kill women. I used to hear old people talk about a Cheyenne named Wounded Elk who had beaten his wife and then shot her killing her.

I never heard of any other case like that The incident happened before I was born Suicides were not uncommon among us Men shot themselves women hung themselves Foolish ones Yet do such acts It's interesting he says that they The Cheyennes did not use their fists as white people do

You think we're talking straight grappling? Yeah right no strikes just all peeing them Or is he is he saying that they struck in a different way. Like open hand or something? Yeah. It's possible. Maybe they didn't want to break their hands.

It's a pretty smart move. Again, a little bit more culture, and this is one as wrapped in a little story. Two youths, brothers, found one time a wolf's den. One of them took his lariat and crawled into the hillside cave to get pups.

He felt about in the darkness, got the rope about a pups hind feet, and dragged it out. They knocked it in the head, and he went in, after another one. This time, either a pup or an old wolf bit his hand.

He retreated. Outside, he got a forked stick. With this projecting out in front of him, he returned to attack upon the wolves. The forked end, the forked end, got engaged in the hair and skin of the wolf.

The youth twisted and tugged, backing out, and dragging after him the snarling and snapping animal. The brother stood with his rifle, poised and ready to shoot. Limbs of brush diverted his arm and the bullet crashed into the head of the other boy. The shocked and weeping brother

put the dead body on a horse and took it to their home lodge. People flocked to see and hear. You killed him in anger, somebody accused. No, it was an accident he sobbed out. And he explained how it had occurred. A group of warrior policemen went with him out to the wolf's den.

And there he rehearsed for their observation all the incidents of the happening. They became fully satisfied that he had no intention to kill his brother that it was truly accidental. The youth was released with no penalty whatsoever. Got a little blue-on-blue there.

Even the Native Americans experienced the blue-on-blue situations in the chaos and confusion. It's pretty, you know, you think about the two little kids crawling into a cave to kill wolves into a wolf den

that's awesome the warrior culture pure warrior culture I love it now we get into I guess I guess you'd call it their religion right

and they call it the great medicine is what is what Wooden Leg refers to and I think the best as I looked up and tried to research what they mean by the word medicine I think the closest thing I got is sort of like spirit, spirituality, spirit. That's kind of the word that it means to me as I tried to figure out exactly what it meant.

I don't know if there's a great... But you can see from the context what he means by it. So here we go back to the book. I made medicine for the first time when I was 17 years old in 1875. To make medicine is to engage upon a special period of fasting thanksgiving, prayer, and self-denial, even of self-torture. The procedure is an entirely devotional exercise. The purpose is to subdue the passions of the flesh and to improve the spiritual self.

The bodily abstinence and the mental concentration upon lofty thoughts cleanses both the body and the soul and puts them into or keeps them in health. then the individual mind gets closer toward conformity with the mind of the great medicine above us. So that's just awesome. You know, he's talking about fasting. He's talking about focusing on larger things. He's talking about punishing yourself. And, you know, he's the term self-torture. This is discipline.

So he goes to his medicine man, a guy named Red-Hared Bear. red-haired bear I want to make medicine I told him how he responded encouragingly and that's not a question it's like the statement of how

how he responded encouraging me what number of days do you think you can endure the whole four days I replied confidently how he clothed I will help you

so he's gonna I guess that's the I guess that's the max limit that they go is four straight days so it's four straight days so it's four straight days by the way, on your own,

no food, no water. That's what the deal is. And you bear the elements, you can have like a little tent, but you're going to bear the elements. As he's preparing to do it, here we go back to the book. The medicine man painted my whole body. Red clay mixed into water

and a dish was used for most of the painting. With the black paint, he made first a circle about my face, including the forehead, the chest. chin and the cheeks. Black wristlets and black anklets were next form. On the middle of my breast, he painted a black sun. On my left shoulder blade, he put a black moon. This is going to be a hard trial for you, the hardest trial you've ever had. Throughout the four days you will have neither food nor water. Your desires will distress you. Other distresses may be piled upon these.

You may retreat now and postpone it for another time if you want to do so. What say you? You. I dread it, I confessed. But I know it will not kill me. I do not want to wait. I want to go on right now. I shall keep my courage from failing by fixing my thoughts upon being a good man. Legit.

Going into the ceremony a little bit, here he is. Hot, thirsty, yet more hot and more thirsty. I prayed particularly for the strength of bond. and firmness of heart to carry me through to the end of the trial. I loaded my pipe for a solacing smoke. But it was not a solace. The heat burned my already parching tongue. I tried to sleep.

Maybe I did sleep. I do not know. I made attempts to meditate quietly. I do not know whether I was actually thinking or was following dreams racing through my mind. All I could be sure about was that I was either sitting down or lying down all the time. and by the way, when they smoke the pipe, from what I could figure out, they're pretty much smoking generally tobacco

with sometimes other herbs that they sometimes would mix with the tobacco. Willow bark, sumac, white sage, just kind of other plants and herbs. Back to the book. Oh! How lonely I was. I loaded and lit my pipe. No, it was not good.

My mouth and throat were burning. Water! Water! But the great medicine sees me, I kept thinking. My thoughts whirled and chased each other rapidly in circles. I dreamt that I heard the footsteps of a horse. Hey, wooden leg! Hey!

This is the day. Happiness almost filled my heart. The only hindrance. was in the thirst and the hot body. After I had been let out, we smoked together. It was a torture to my tongue, but I did not complain. We went then to my father's lodge in the camp. My father called out an invitation to old men, friends.

They came and sat in a circle upon the robe, spread over the lodge's floor. I sat with them by the side of my father. My mother brought a bucket full of water and set it off a little distance from me. I suppressed a strong desire To plunge my face into it But I could not keep my eyes From staring at it Wooden leg

You have been four days without water Now you may drink four sips I seized the sides of the bucket The four sips Were four long drawn mouthfuls I waited for more advice Wooden leg you have been four days without meat take four sliced off bites, one for each day of the fast.

I selected a chunk from the plate. I stuck the end of it far into my mouth, and with a sheath knife I cut it off. The chewing was vigorous, and I soon had it swallowed. The chunk was pushed a second time into my mouth, and its end cut off there. A third and fourth mouthful were taken in the same manner. After a few minutes more meat was allowed to me. Then still more. all I cared to eat.

It was the best meat I ever tasted. And I talked about that the other day is like the recalibration of knowing what it's like to actually feel hungry and then how good food tastes when you haven't eaten for a while. It tastes good. And that's what he's feeling the best meat he ever tasted. Yep. Right there. Boom.

Now that's one little ceremony that he went through. And he does some more of that. the second medicine experience he does was about a month after that one and he did two days instead of four so it's something that you kind of that these warriors would kind of continually keep up with and back to the book here for third season of warrior discipline i went one morning at dawn to the top of the hill there i fasted prayed meditated and dreamed all day another disciplinary means for subduing the flesh was to stand up all day from sunrise to sunset on a hill. The devotee did not move during that time except to keep his face turned at all times towards the sun. He might keep his eyes closed or shaded, but his countenance had to be presented ever towards

the federated token of the great medicine's existence. He prayed or otherwise kept his thoughts fixed on a high plane. This system of self-denial was varied by attitude. taken. One might stand all day or sit in one position all day or lie down during all the time, but the attitude assumed at the beginning must be kept to the end. My all-day supplications were made while sitting down. Standing upright in water from sunrise to sunset was one way of putting the body under the rule of the spirit. The water had to be up to the neck or the upper breast. not any drink of it was taken

it was not permissible to move the body except for keeping the face towards the sun so just go get in the water and you know these guys are in you know these guys are in Montana right right they're in Montana just FYI I don't care if it's the middle of summer

the water in Montana is cold yeah it's not Kauai no it's not Kauai and it's also interesting that you know it all different military units do this kind of stuff. You know, just going out and standing at attention, which they make you do in the military,

which is when you're standing, you know, erect with your hands at your side, you're not allowed to move. You do that for hours and hours and hours. It's interesting. It's like, that's not just a coincidence, is it? You know what I mean? There is a discipline there. There's a discipline of the body in doing that,

and it puts you in touch with your soul. You stand there long enough, and then, like, going through shield training. You don't think you spend some time neck deep in walking. Just waiting and being cold and enduring, absolutely. Yeah, man. I mean, yoga can kind of be that, you know, like certain poses. I mean, to compare the disfar as the magnitude is different, but...

Yeah, it's different. They do that. You ever did, like, wall sits? Yeah. Like, that's another one, man, where it feels physical, but at the end of the day, it's mental. Yep. Like, you just want to be, okay, I'm done. But you're the thing you don't...

You can endure it, but it doesn't take a lot, man. Yeah. the walsits are painful after a while and then he goes on to say the bodily torture incident to the full standard great medicine dance what the white people call the sun dance

was the most severe test of hardyhood so it was looked upon as the highest form of self-scourging I never undertook this extreme step so the sun dance if you don't know anything about that it's like a multi-day

fast with physical exertion, with borderline self-tortish, like they do piercings and slay the skin open. I mean, it's hardcore, and it got banned for a while, and it wasn't, no one, the natives don't want people to, like, watch it or record it, because it's their own personal thing. So, anyways, you could probably do more research on it.

It's called the Sundance, but they do all kinds of really, really hardcore stuff. It's just, you know, some devastating, hard stuff to go through that hardens your soul up. Here's one more interesting thing here. Back to the book. The face painting as it was done for me

by red-haired bear at my first medicine making was adopted as my fixed mode of battle preparation in this regard. It was a black ring about my face, including lower forehead, chin, and cheeks in its circle.

All of the surface enclosed in that circle was painted yellow I kept at all times right at hand a supply of charcoal and yellow clay paint it did not take long for me to apply them when an occasion for their need might come with this preparation with my best clothing my shield my eagle wing bone whistle myself and my horse protected by the grass seed medicine I was almost fearless I was not entirely so but almost in every time of danger. I tried to keep myself thinking, the great medicine sees me. Now, there's a note, a historical note that's written. Now it's going out of the, out of wooden legs voice,

and it's going into a Dr. Marquis, the translator, and he's going to put a little note here, and I'm going to read back to the book. In December 1875, pursuant to our governmental policy, General Sherman, then commander-in-chief of the United States Army, issued an important General Order. He proclaimed that all Indians found off the reservations after the last day of January 1876 would be regarded as hostels to be fought by military forces. It being evident that not many of the Dakota Romers in Montana would return to reservations until they were forced to do so, bodies of soldiers were set in motion for seeking out and driving these wanderers back within their assigned territorial bounds.

the active military field leaders in this campaign were Brigadier General Terry, Brigadier General Crook, Colonel Gibbon and Lieutenant Colonel Custer. Each of these four officers had been bravetted major general of volunteers during the Civil War. And what that bravetted means that it's like you get a temporary promotion to fill a billet, but you're not getting paid for it. and then after it, you get put back. But the contracting of the army after the war set each of them back to a lower ranking. Terry had infantry from Fort Rice and Custer's 7th Cavalry from Fort Lincoln, Dakota.

Crook had a force of cavalry and infantry at Fort Federman, Wyoming. Gibb had infantry from Fort Shaw and cavalry from Fort Ellis, Montana. From there, three basic points in Dakota in Wyoming in Montana, the three bodies of soldiers moved towards a common central area between powder, between the Powder and Big Horn rivers in Montana, where the Indians being sought were roaming. The details of these military movements are too extensive for review here.

The most thrilling phase of the campaign began when Custer and his 7th Cavalry set off up Rosebud Valley to follow a recent Indian trail. The result of this subsidiary proceeding was the supreme tragedy in the annals of our American front to your warfare. And of course that was the battle at Little Big Horn. Now, like it just stated, you had these

groups, and they're out in the planes, and they're I guess tracking each other, or at least the soldiers, the U.S. soldiers, the cavalry, are tracking the Indians. And here we go. Back to the book. And this is back to the voice of our man

wooden leg. We found the soldiers about seven or eight o'clock in the morning, I believe. We had slept only a little, our horses were very tired, so we did not hurry our attack. But always in such cases

there are eager or foolish ones who begin too soon. Not long after we arrived, there was fighting on the hillsides and on the little valley where the soldier camp. In this early fighting, one of the young Cheyenne

foolishly charged too far and some Indians belonging to the soldiers got after him. So I'm going to read that again. In this early fighting, one young Cheyenne foolishly charged too far and some Indians belonging to the soldiers got after it. So you have, and this whole war is, there's Indians or Native Americans that are on both sides. There's Native Americans that are working with the U.S. cavalry and the soldiers.

and then they're fighting against other Native American tribes. So back to the book, They shot and crippled his horse. I and some other Cheyennes drove back the pursuers. I took the young man behind me on my horse and we hurried away to the main body of our warriors. Jack Red Cloud, the son of the old Ogalala Chief Red Cloud,

was wearing a war bonnet. His horse was killed. According to the Indian Way, in such case the warrior was supposed to stop and take off the bridle from his killed horse to show how cool he could conduct himself. But young Red Cloud forgot to do this. He went running as soon as his horse fell. Three crows on horseback followed him, lashed him with their pony whips,

and jerked off and kept his war bonnet. They did not try to kill him. They only teased him, telling him he was a boy and ought not to be wearing a war bonnet. Some of his two friends interfered in the crowing. went away the Sioux told us that young red cloud was crying and asking for mercy from the crows He was my same age 18 years old white wolf a Cheyenne almost 30 years old had a repeating rifle And drawing his weapon from its scabbard at his left side it was accidentally just discharged The bullet broke his left thigh bone he finally recovered and is yet living this was in 1930

He still limps on account of that accidental wound those are two just the just the little, first of all, you know, young Red Cloud who was wearing a war bonnet and he's supposed to show how cool he is if his horse gets shot and take that bridle with you. He did not do that. And then again, this is an accidental discharge, which it does happen occasionally. It's really bad to have accidental discharge, obviously, especially when you shoot yourself in the leg. Horrible. So they stay They continue moving around And they start to move Towards little big horn This river And back to the book

Six Apraho Arapaho Men came to the Cheyenne camp While we were at this place They said they were afraid of soldiers As they had killed a white man on Powder River And so now you start to get And again I'm kind of

moving quickly right now but there's now multiple tribes are starting to come together in this in this location multiple tribes each back to the book each tribe operated its own internal government the same as if it were entirely separated from the others

the chiefs of the different tribes met together as equals there was only one who is considered as being above all others this was sitting bull he was recognized as the one old man chief of all the camps combined almost all of our northern Cheyenne tribe were with us on Little Big Horn only a few of our 40 big chiefs were absent and this is this is interesting because there's a lot of controversy

about how many Indians were there and he and some people say that wasn't that many he's saying all he's saying all at least all the Cheyennes were there and there was more than just the Cheyenne so there had to be a bunch of them a bunch of them there. Now we get into some of these different

tribes and chiefs that were there. The principal chiefs of the various camps were for the for the Hoopas was Sitting Bull.

The Ogalalas was a crazy horse which we all have heard a crazy horse. The Minicanju was lame deer another tribe called arrows all gone and they had an important chief called hump nose there was the black feet which which wooden leg didn't know who is their chief and then you had the shot the Cheyans so there's a bunch I mean a massive number of Native American warriors talking about their armament back to the book

guns were not plentiful among us most of our hunting had been with bows and arrows of the Cheyenne's two moons and white wolf each had a repeating rifle some others had single shot breach loading rifles, but there was not much ammunition for the good guns. So they're mostly using bow and arrows, right? That's kind of what they have. And at one point, they kind of take their horses and they put them out to graze, and they think that they had a little, they had gotten a little scrap with the soldiers, and they kind of whooped them, not bad, but they just sort of beat them, and it seemed like the soldiers

retreated. And so they put their soldiers out, I mean, they put their horses out to pasture, and it seems like Things are going pretty mellow, and I'll go back to the book. I had no thought then of any fighting to be done in the near future. We had driven away the soldiers on the upper rosebed seven days ago. It seemed likely they would be gone a long time before they would trouble us again. My mind was occupied mostly by such thoughts as regularly our uppermost in the minds of young men. I was 18 years old, and I like girls.

That night we had a dance. It was an entirely social affair for young people, not ceremonial. Not a ceremonial or war dance. So there he is. They kind of got in a scrap seven days ago. They feel like they're pretty safe. They put their horses out to pasture. And then he starts thinking about the ladies.

And they basically party through the whole night. Back to the book, at the first sign of dawn, the dance ended. And then him and his brother, they kind of take off and they go down by the river and fall asleep. And that's the end of their night. Back to the book. In my sleep, I dream that a great crowd of people were making lots of noise. Something in the noise startled me. I found myself wide awake, sitting up and listening.

My brother too awakened and we both jumped to our feet. A great commotion was going on among the camps. We heard shooting. We hurried out from the trees so we might see as well as here. The shooting was somewhere at the upper part of the camp circles. It looked as if all the Indians were there, there were running away toward the hills to the westward or down toward our end of the village women were screaming and men were letting out war cries through it all we could hear old men calling

soldiers are here young men go out and fight them so there they go they were peaceful but they're about to get it on and as he talked about before what does he do to prepare for battle here we go back to the book i jerked off my ordinary clothing i jerked on a pair of new breaches that had been given to me by another sue. I had a good cloth shirt and I put it on. My old moccasins were kicked off and a pair of beaded moccasins

substituted for them. My father strapped a blanket upon my horse and arranged my raw hide larya into a bridle. He stood holding my mouth. Hurry, he urged me. I was hurrying but I was not yet ready. I got my paints in my little mirror. The blue black circle soon

appeared around my face. The red and yellow colorings were applied on all skin of the inside the circle. I combed my hair. It properly should have been oiled and braided neatly, but my father was again saying, hurry. So I just looped a buckskin thong about it and tied it up close to the back of my head

to float loose from there. My bullets, caps, and powder horn put me into full readiness. In a moment afterward, I was on my horse, going as fast as I could run to where all the rest of the young men were going. My brother had already gone. He got his horse before I got mine,

and his dressing was only a buckstringed shirt fringed with crow Indian hair. The hair had been taking from a crow at a past battle with them. The air was so full of dust I could not see where to go. But it was not needful that I see that far. I kept my horse headed in the direction of movement by the crowd of Indians on horseback. I was led out and around and afar beyond the camp circle. Many hundreds of Indians on horseback were dashing to and fro in front of the soldiers. The soldiers were on level ground.

The soldiers were on the level valley ground and were shooting with rifles. Not many bullets were being sent back at them, but thousands of arrows were falling among them. I went with a throng of Sioux until we got beyond and behind the white men, so you've got a flank going on, and they're starting to surround the white men. By this time, though, they had mounted their horses and were hiding themselves in the timber. A band of Indians were there with the soldiers. It appeared they were crow or Shoshones Most of the Indians had fled back up the valley Some were across east of the river and were riding away over beyond the hills

So there you go This is what happens he wakes woken up And gets his war gear on and he's going into battle And interestingly You know he talks about there's other Indians that they're fighting The Crows and Shoshones it sounds like most of them are bailing Back to the book our Indian crowded down toward the timber where were the soldiers.

More and more of our people kept coming. Almost all of them were Sioux. There were only a few Cheyennes. Arrows were showered into the timber. Bullets whistled out of the, out toward the Sioux and Cheyans. But we stayed far back while we extended our curve line further and further around the big grove trees. So they're encircling them. Some dead soldiers had been left among the grass and sagebrush.

where they had first fought us. It seemed to me the remainder of them would not live many hours longer. Sue were creeping forward to set fire to the timber. They're going to set fire to the woods that they're hiding in. Back to the book. Suddenly, the hidden soldiers came tearing out on horseback from the wood.

I was around on that side where they came out. I whirled my horse around and lashed it into a dash to escape from them. All others of my comrade. companions did the same, but we soon discovered that they were not following us. They were running away from us. They were going as fast as their tired horses could carry them across the open valley space and toward the river. We stopped, looked a moment, and then we whipped our ponies into swift pursuit. A great throng of soos were also coming after them. My distant position put me among the leaders in the chase. The soldiers' horses moved slowly as if they were tired.

ours were very lively. We gained rapidly on them. I fired four shots with my six-shooter. I do not know whether any of my bullets did harm. I saw Sue put an arrow into the back of a soldier's head. Another arrow went down into his shoulder. He tumbled from his horse to the ground. Others fell dead either from arrows or stabbing or jabbing or blows from war clubs of the Sioux.

Horses limped or staggered or sprawled. out dead or dying. Our war cries and war songs were mingled with the many jeering calls, such as, your only boys, you ought not to be fighting. We whipped you in Rosebud. You should have brought more crows or shoshoneys with you to do your fighting. Little Bird and I were after one certain soldier. Little Bird was wearing a trailing war bonnet. He was, he was at the right and I was at the left of the fleeing man. We were lashing him and his horse with our pony whips. It seemed not brave to shoot him. Besides, I did not want to waste any of my bullets.

He pointed back to his revolver. He pointed back his revolver, though, and sent a bullet into little bird's thigh. Immediately, I whacked the white man fighter on his head with a heavy elk-horn handle of my pony whip. The blow dazed him. I seized the rifle strapped on his back. I wrenched it to the ground. I wrenched it and dragged the looping strap over his head. As I was getting possession of this weapon, he fell to the ground.

I did not harm him further. I do not know what became of him. The jam of oncoming Indians swept me on, but I now had a good soldier rifle, yet I had not any cartridges for it. Three soldiers on horses got separated from the others and started up the valley in the direction from where they had come. Three Cheyenne's Sun Bear, Eagle, Tail, Feather, and Little Sun joined some Sue in pursuit of the three white men. The Cheyennes told afterward about the outcome of this pursuit. one of the soldiers turned his horse eastward toward the river and escaped into the timber. The other two kept on southward. Of these two, one went off to the right, up a small gulch to the top of the bench.

There he was caught and killed. The remaining one rode on toward the mouth of Reno Creek. As he neared that point, he swerved to the right. He made a circle upon the valley and returned to the timber just across west from the mouth of Reno Creek. Here he dismounted from his exhausted horse and got himself into the bush. The Sioux and Cheyenne surrounded him and killed him. They told that he fought bravely to his last, making use of his six-shooter. A war-bonnet Indian belonging with soldiers was chased by crooked nose, a Cheyenne and some other Sioux.

The chase was a foot across a wet slew and into some timber northward from where the soldiers had been hidden a few minutes. After many exchanges of shots, after much dodging and shifting of position, the enemy Indian was killed there. Just a crazy fight. Just a crazy fight. I mean, this is like stuff that you see in Western movies. People pulling each other off of horses, shooting people in the head with bow and arrow from a horse. That's just crazy and brutal. And I'll tell you, there's some really good accounts.

And I started to go down this road. So if anybody that's listening is a student of the Battle of Little Bighorn, there's, you know, lots of different stories about it. And there's also some really detailed accounts. And I started trying to pull out and match up what was happening in this account with other accounts, really historically accurate, documented accounts. And as I started to do that, I said, I'm not going to go down this road of trying to figure out exactly which situation he's talking about.

There was multiple small battles out there. There was, like I said, Reno and Bentin who survived with their soldiers and they made maneuvers. And a lot of people blame them. Some people don't blame them. You know, some people say that they should have gone to help. Some people say that they didn't have a chance. There's all kinds of those things. And as I started to try and figure out which was which, I said, you know what, I'm not going to go that deep into this account.

What's important about this account to me is the reality of the ground combat. That's what I'm interested in in this account. And I'm sure maybe at some point in my life, when I have more time, I would love to marry up the two and say, oh, he must have been in this situation, and this must have been this person, and this must have been this maneuver. He must have seen this maneuver from the cavalry. It'd be fun to do that, especially go out and walk the ground and do it. That would be really good.

But anyways, if you're a person that's fully into this, I'm not going down that road right now. But I will go back to the book right now. Another enemy Indian was behind a little sagebrush knoll and shooting at us. His shots were returned. I and some others went around and got behind him. See this, I'll tell you what, wooden legs is all about flanking people.

You notice that? He's just flanking people all over the place. I and some others went around. and got behind him. We dismounted and crept toward him. As we came close upon up to him, he fell. A bullet had hit him. He raised himself up though and swung his rifle around toward us. We rushed upon him. I crashed a blow of my rifle barrel upon his head. Others beat and stabbed him to death. I also got his gun. It was the same as the one I had taken from the other soldier, but the Indians gun had a longer barrel. One of the Sioux scalped the dead man.

different ones took his clothing I took nothing except the gun continuing on somebody said to me look yonder other soldiers I saw them on a distant hill down the river and on our same side of it the news of them spread

quickly among us Indians began to ride in that direction and so they're now going to again this is where I didn't want to try and figure out exactly what battle but yeah so there's another portion of the battle taking place I know in my head where he's going, but we'll just say there's he sees other soldiers to go after.

I'm pretty sure this is him going after Custer. And as he's going towards this other battle that's taking place, he passes through the camp again. And he sees his dad, and he says, my father was the only person at our lodge. I told him of the fight up in the valley. I told him of having helped in the killing of the enemy Indian and some soldiers in the river. I gave to him the tobacco I had taken. I showed him my gun and all the cartridges. You have been brave, he cheered me.

You have done enough for the day. Now you should rest. No. I want to go and fight the other soldiers. I can fight better now with this gun. Your horse is tired, he argued. Yes, but I want to ride the other one. It's a wood leg.

He had a good morning so far. Got after it. But he sees the fighting going on, and because he's a warrior, he says, nope, I'm getting back in the game. back to the book as we approach the place of battle each one chose his own personal course all of the Indians had come out on horseback almost all of them dismounted and crept along the gullies of foot after the arrival near the soldiers I think that's the reason I the reason I highlighted that is because you got people doing decentralized command oh you see

where the battle is get there right you're not we don't have to line up we don't have to march together you see where the battle is get there on your own personal course make it happen Most of the Indians were working around the ridge now occupied by the soldiers. We were laying down in gullies and behind sagebrush hillocks. The shooting at first was at a distance, but we kept creeping in closer all around the ridge. Bowes and arrows were used more than guns. From the hiding places of the Indians, the arrows could be shot high and long curve to fall upon the soldiers or their horses.

An Indian using a gun had to jump up and expose himself long to shoot. The arrows falling upon the horses stuck in their backs and caused them to go plunging here and there, knocking down the soldiers. So this is classic. You know, you think that the rifle is the better weapon, but the rifle, you have to expose yourself to shoot. Well, the Indians are just hunkered down behind a knoll or behind some brush or behind a valley, and they're just lobbing.

like a mortar rounds, thousands of mortar rounds just hitting into where the soldiers are and the soldiers can't even do anything to them. The long distance fighting was kept up for about an hour and a half, I believe. The Indians all the time could see where the soldiers were because the white men were mostly on a ridge

and their horses were with them but the soldiers could not see our warriors as they had left their ponies and were crawling through the gullies and the sagebrush. A warrior would jump up, shoot, jerk himself down quickly, and then crawl a little forward, a little further forward. All around the soldier ridge, our men were doing this. So not many of them got hit by soldier bullets during this time of fighting.

This is beautiful. This is beautiful. This is exactly what we teach, what the whole, what the military teaches. Individual movement. You shoot, you get up, you get back down, you crawl, you get up again. So the enemy might see you right when you take a shot, then you duck, and then when you pop up again, you're not in the same place. So if you were aiming where they were, they're not there anymore.

This is beautiful tactics. In a few minutes, the warriors were all around these soldiers. Then lame white man, that's an Indian, lame white man called out, come, we can kill all of them. All around the Indians began jumping up, running forward, dodging down, jumping up again, down again all the time towards the soldiers. Right away, all the white men went crazy. Instead of fighting us, they turned their guns. upon themselves almost before we could get to them every one of them was dead they killed themselves the Indians took the guns of these soldiers and used them

for shooting at the soldiers on the high ridge I went back and got my horse and rode around beyond the east end of the ridge by the time I got there all the soldiers were dead the Indians told me they had killed only a few of those men and that the men had shot each other and shot themselves and this is this is very controversial whether these guys killed themselves and I don't even know if it's that controversial it's like straight up most people don't believe that

I don't know I don't know I don't know what the answer is but we know that one thing we do know they're all dead back to the book I saw one Sue walking and I'm sure you know what I'm sure that somebody

that's listening to this is going to give us the full report yeah and actually I I have books. I have books, and this is not the same account, right? This is different, them killing themselves. So I know that, but, well, I'm talking about this book right now, so I'm going with it. I saw one Sue walking slowly toward the gulch going away from where were the soldiers.

He wobbled disly as he moved along. He fell down, got up, fell down, got up again. As he passed near to where I was, I saw that. his whole lower jaw was shot away. The sight of him made me sick. I had to vomit. I did not know him, and I did not learn whether he died or not. The shots quit coming from the soldiers.

Warriors who had crept close to them began to call out that all the white men were dead. All the Indians then jumped up and rushed forward. All the boys and the old men on their horses came tearing into the crowd. The air was full of smoke and dust. Everybody was greatly excited. It looked like thousands of dogs might look if they were mixed together in a fight. All of the Indians were saying that these soldiers went so crazy they killed themselves. I do not know.

I could not see them, but I believe they did so. Again, so he doesn't even know what the real deal is there. But like I said, what we do know is that not one of them lived. I took one scalp. As I went walking and leading my horse among the dead I observed, one face that interested me. The dead man had a long beard growing from both sides of his face and extending several inches below the chin. He also had a full mustache. All of the beard hair was of a light yellow color, as I now recall it. Most of the soldiers had beard growing in different lengths, but this

was the longest one I saw among them. I think the dead man may have been 30 or more years old. here is a new kind of scalp i said to a companion i skinned one side of the face and half of the chin so as to keep the long beard yet on the part removed i got an arrow shaft and tied the strange scalp to the end of it this i carried in hand as i went looking further somebody told me noisy walking was badly wounded that was another indian name noisy walking i went to where he was said to be down in the gulch where the band of soldiers nearest the river had been killed in the earlier part of the battle. He was my same age, and often we had been companions since our small boyhood. White Bull, an important medicine man, was his father. Noisy walking had been hit by three different bullets, one of them having passed through his body.

He also had some stab wounds in his side. I asked the young man, how are you? He replied, good. But he did not look well. One young Cheyenne took something from a dead soldier just after all of them had been killed. He was puzzled by it. Some others looked at it.

I was with them. It was made of white metal and had glass on one side. On this side were marks of some kind. While the Cheyenne was looking at it, he got it up towards his ear. Then he put it up close. It's alive, he said. Others put it to their ears and listened. I put it to mine.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick it was saying. We talked about its use. We generally agreed that it was a soldier's special medicine. Many Indians came and wondered about it. The young man decided to keep it for his own medicine. So they found a watch on one of the soldiers, a little wind-up pocket watch. To me, this was just a really good example of the cultural differences. They'd never seen a watch before.

And so they were surprised and didn't even understand what it was or that it was not actually alive. It was just a mechanical. A watch. Back to the book. Noisy walking died during the night after the Great Battle. Six Cheyennes had been killed. Another man, open belly was badly wounded and was expected to die.

He was about 30 years old, but he had neither one. life nor children. The six dead were lame white man, limber bones, black bear, noisy balking, hump nose, and whirlwind. And then after that battle, during the afternoon it was learned that yet another band of white men were coming up the little big horn valley. All the young men wanted to fight. A council of chiefs was held. They decided we should continue in our same course and not fight any soldiers if we could get away without doing so. All of the Indians then got ready to move. Probably a smart move.

So then after that, they go to this area that's called greasy grass. And there, they have a little war dance, a little sort of a, I guess you'd call it a ceremony or a celebration. Back to the book, Charcoal Bear, our medicine chief, brought the buffalo skin from the sacred teepee and put it on top of a pole at the center

of our camp circle. We danced around this pole. No women took part in the dancing. Many of them had sore legs from mourning cuts, and when they lose their husband, they would cut themselves. Our dance was not carried very far into the night. It was mostly a short telling of experiencing, a counting of coup. My father told, in a few words, what his two sons had done. When he ended the telling of my warrior axe, he said, the name of this son of my son of my son. Mine is wooden leg. Up to this time, people had still used my boyhood name. Eats from his hand.

But now this old name was entirely gone. So it was after that battle a little big horn is when wooden leg became wooden leg. Now they proceed and together all this big mass of tribes. And at this point, they're about to separate their tribes. and start going in their own directions and then they get a report soldiers are coming the two bands of Indians began to come together again the warrior the warriors mingled themselves as being one tribe the women and children and older men both of both sets of people moved together up the tongue river the young men put themselves behind

their fleeing people somebody said to me they have captured some women your sister is one of them my heart jumped when this news came to me I lashed my horse into a run toward where it was said they had been captured. There I saw the tracks of soldier horses. The trail led me to the river of ice. On the opposite side of the river, the west side were soldiers. They began shooting at me. I had to get away. I did not see any of the women, so I supposed they had been killed. My heart then became bitter toward these white men. I hid my horse in the brush at the foot of the ridge, where some warriors were on its

top. I walked up there. Many Indians were hidden behind rocks and were shooting towards the soldiers. I chose for myself a place of hiding and did the same. I had my soldier rifle and plenty of cartridges. Many soldiers were coming across the ice to fight us, but we had the advantage because our position was high and on a rocky ridge. So it's interesting that he doesn't even become bitter towards the soldiers until they do something to his sister. And then all of a sudden he's bitter towards the white men. And it's also important there at the end. You've got to get the high ground.

You've got to get the high ground. That's literally the only reason that I put that in there. For those of you out there that are in the military that are fighting, get the high ground. It gives you a massive advantage over the enemy. So after this, they kind of settle up the Tong River. And there, I'll go back to the book, we found plenty of buffalo there. We went on west to the upper little big horn. After camping and hunting there, we went farther to the big horn at the mouth of rotten grass creek.

We did not stay there long. We returned to little big horn. Most of the last part of the winter was spent in a camp in this valley. All the time during the next few months, we had good hunting. Soldiers did not trouble us, nor did we trouble them. All the people had good lodges. In every way we were living yet according to our customary habits. We were not bothering any white people.

We did not want to see any of them. We felt we were on our land. We had killed only such people as had come for driving us away from it. So our hearts were clean from any feeling of guilt. So they're kind of living, they're kind of going back to just live in their own, the way that they were used to living. And this is where, you know, this next chapter, chapter seven is called the surrender of the Chey-Ans. Just before the grass began to show itself in the early part of spring, two visitors arrived at our camp on Little big horn. One of these was our old captured, was our captured old woman, sweet woman.

The other was a half-breed sue we called White. Each had a horse to ride and each was leading a pack horse. In their packs were tobacco and other things for gifts to the principal chiefs. The visitors said they had been sent out from the soldier fort at the mouth of the Tongue River to invite us to come there and surrender peaceably. They brought us a promise from Bay, air coat, the soldier chief there, that we should not be harmed and should be given plenty of food. So they're starting to get enticed. We're starting to get enticed by some, by, you know, basically food, tobacco. Back to the book, the four chiefs came back to us at this Powder River camp.

White Bull was not with him. They told us he had stayed with the soldiers to scout for them and hunting Indians. This news did not please us. As we looked at it, the surrendering to the soldiers was not. good if one felt like doing this, but an offer to help them to kill friends showed a bad heart. I was more affected, though, by other news the chiefs brought. It was concerning my sister, Crooked Nose, one of the captives. When the chiefs were only a part of the first day out and coming back from the fort, somebody followed them to tell them about her. She had been very sad in

the heart because of a belief she would never again see her people. She had felt better when the chiefs came, but when they went away again, she fell into a deep grief. My sorrow was so great, her sorrow was so great, that she had gotten out her hidden six-shooter I had given to her, and she sought herself dead. My heart almost stopped beating when I heard about her death this way. She had been a good sister, kind to everybody. Seven Cheyennes from the agency came to the camp on Powder River. one of them had a TP lodge

but no women were with them they came only to tell us we ought to surrender at the agency they said all the Indians there were being well fed were being well treated in every way nobody was being punished in any manner for past conduct and warfare against the soldiers

so they're getting told basically there's another group there's they can surrender at the fort the army fort or they can surrender at the Indian agency which is also controlled by the soldiers. And of course I just read that part about Wooden Legs sister

committing suicide. So just a devastating blow to him. Now as this continues, the decision gets made by the chiefs to surrender. Actually, at first to find out a little bit

more, gather some more intel. Sorry. Little Wolf and the other principal chiefs chose to go out to the agency. And then when they come back, they say that it's pretty good to go. And when they hear this, they hear about the food, they hear about the whiskey, they hear about the shelter, they decide that the main body of the tribe sets off towards the agency to surrender. Back to the book, but not all the Cheyennes were ready yet to surrender.

any place. 14 or 15 men, six or seven of them having wives or children, separated off to go westward. White Hawk, a little chief of the elk warriors, was with them. I joined another band, still desiring the most freedom we considered to be ours by right. 34 Cheyenne's made up this band. So there's a couple little separate groups that break off and decide they're going to continue pushing. And as they're doing that, when they get in these smaller groups, if you can imagine, I mean,

just like any group if you break it down enough, you start to lose your efficiency, and that's what happened with these smaller groups. They just weren't as efficient anymore because they had less people. I mean, you can't catch as many. You can't work in cooperation to hunt buffalo. And so they didn't do well on their own. Back to the book, we were having a good many days of hunger. Our horses had plenty of grass, but our own ribs were becoming thin.

Our clothing was wearing out, and we could not get enough. skins to renew them and keep our beds and our lodges in good order. My soldier coat and breeches were gone, and my last shirt and cough breaches were almost in tatters. The only good article of where I had now was my big white hat I'd captured at the Rosebud Battle. A Cheyenne named Yellow Eagle added himself to us. He had been at the agency not long before. We decided to have him and Whitebird go there and spy out the conditions. They went.

In a week or so, they were back among us. Good treatment, plenty of food, blankets, everything. Nobody punished, they reported. We started right away for the agency. So, when they split apart into these smaller groups, that was definitely problematic and now they go from being out there kind of on their own

hungry running out of food don't have good equipment anymore and somebody they send somebody to the agency to check it out and they get the report back that there's plenty of food and blankets and warm and all they're going to do there is go and give up so now they move and they start heading

towards the agency and when they get there, back to the book, it made us all feel good to see hundreds of Indian lodges as we came near to the agency. We galloped our horses forward. We cheered and fired gunshots into the air. Some soldiers came running out of their tents, but they soon saw we were friendly and only celebrating and notifying our people we had come. So here they are. And a white man, married to a Cheyenne woman, was acting as an interpreter for the soldiers. his name was Roland.

But White Hat did not need any interpreter in talking to us. He could make the sign talk so well. After the general handshaking, White Hat said, now you men must give me your guns and your horses. We were not expecting this, but we trusted him, so we began to do as he asked.

I'm telling you got to be careful in this situation. When you start giving up your guns, this is not a recommended course of action. You know, if you're coming in peace, why are you not allowed to keep your weapons? This is not a, this is not a, I did not agree with this scenario. Back to the book. We had one big chief, standing elk, who kept saying it would be better if we should go there. So they're trying to get them to push towards the south, like towards Oklahoma, what would be Oklahoma.

And they're kind of against it. They don't want to walk anymore. They feel like they, hey, look, we came here. here. We, we're supposed to be here. And they're saying, oh, no, we're going to move you guys south. And they're all saying, no, we don't want to. So that's what Standing Elk is talking about. So Standing Elk, who kept saying it would be better if we should go there. I think there were not as many as ten Cheyennes and our whole tribe who agreed with him. There was a feeling that he was talking this way only to make himself a big Indian among the white people. The white men

chiefs would not talk much to any Cheyenne chief. him they gave him extra presence and treated him as if he were the only tribe the only chief in the tribe but he was but one of our 40 tribal big chiefs one day he went about telling everybody all right get ready to move the soldiers are going to take us from here tomorrow lots of Cheyenne's were angry we had understood that when we surrendered we were to live on our same white river reservation we'd given up our guns and our horses and had quit fighting because of the this promise. Now, after we had put ourselves at this great disadvantage, the promise was to be

broken. But we could not do anything except obey him. So three sleeps after my small band had come to what we thought was to be our home. The whole tribe was on its way to what we now call Oklahoma. So again, that's why we don't give up our guns. When you give up your guns, you give up your strength, you give up your leverage, give up your ability to fight. The soldier leader of our movement to the south was known as tall white man. He was a good man, always kind to the Indians. We had to do whatever he said we must do, but he talked good to our chiefs, so all of us were pleased to have him guiding us. He had with him a band of soldiers. I do not know how many, but I think there may have been almost a hundred of them. Our horses that have been taken away

from us at the agency were returned to us. Still, many Cheyennes did not own any. Old people who had no animal to ride were provided with them from the soldier herd. Or very old or sick people were allowed to ride in the soldier wagons. Young men who owned no horses had to walk

or borrow from friends. I owned four. I had three of them loaned out most of the time. So that's actually that the treatment at this point by tall white man was fairly good.

And it sounds like they kind of got along with the soldiers at this point. And here's an example that soldiers hunted with the Indians. All the soldiers were friendly and good to us. They were good shooters and they killed lots of game. They gave us most of the meat. I became specifically friendly with two

or three of them. I like to be with them and they appeared to like me. I went at times to their camp in the evening and visited with them. When we were about halfway along in our journey I asked one of them, let me take your gun tomorrow. Yes, you may take it, he told me. So I think the reason I

wanted to bring that up is when you get soldiers and warriors and you put them together and you get rid of the politics, guess what? They get along. Oh, we like shooting, we like hunting. We're warriors. We're going to get along. Kind of like the Germans playing the soccer. Playing soccer, exactly. You take the politics out of it and we're just going to

have a couple cigarettes, maybe a glass of scotch and call it good. Now, when they get down to Oklahoma, they kind of settle in in the south. And here we go back to the book. I learned in the south the white man name of long hair,

the soldier big chief we had killed on the little big horn. I was told he was called General Custer. I had heard his name spoken at the White River Agency, but had not understood clearly who was meant by it. The Southern Cheyennes knew of him because of his having fought against them before he had come into our northern country. They had surrendered to him. After we've been a year on this reservation,

many of our people began to be asked to be taken back to the north. There was no game here, and we were not allowed to go off the reservation for hunting, and we were not given food as it had been promised. We should be given. At times, some of our young men would violate the orders and would slip away from the reservation to get a buffalo or some other animal good to eat. Some white people said the Indians were killing their cattle. I do not know. I did not do this.

I stayed all the time on the reservation. But if any Indians did kill the white men cattle, they did so because they were very hungry you could not find any wild game. We ate the beef because it was the best we could get. We always liked much better the wild game. There was much sickness among the northern Cheyhans. To us it was a new kind of sickness. Chills and fever and aching of the bones dragged down most of us to thin and weak bodies. Our people died, died, and kept following one another out of this world.

Finally, Little Wolf declared that he, for one, was moving back north. Whether the white people consented or not. Others said they would follow him. The agent told them that the soldiers would go on their trail and would kill them. They were promised more food. They waited for it, but it did not come. More people flocked to Little Wolf's side. Dull Knife said he would go too.

Late in the summer, more than half the tribe started out. Little Wolf's last message to the agent was The soldiers may kill all of us But they cannot make us stay in this country The soldiers went after them Other soldiers from other places were sent out to head them off The Cheyans were hunted from all directions They were found many times

But each time the Cheyans fought off their pursuers And kept moving northward Many of our people were killed But most of them got back to their old home country And were allowed to stay there From the southern Cheyennes, I learned a great deal about General Custer's dealing with them in that country. All of them said he had smoked the peace pipe with them at that time that they had surrendered to him seven years before he was killed. According to the custom among us, this was understood as a promise by him that never again would he fight against the Cheyenne's.

When they learned that he had been killed by our people in the Sioux, they considered him as having deserved that kind of death. on account of his failure to keep his peace oath. I got a wife from the Southern Cheyenne's. She had been a girl at the Cheyenne camp at the Washter River when Custer and his soldiers came there and killed many Cheyennes and burned their lodges in November of 1868. Chief Blackpot was one of the ones killed. The women and children fled, same as ours had done at Powder River.

It was winter, and there was many, and there was at that time a deep snow for that country. Soldiers chased the women and children and killed many of them as well as the men. My wife, at that time a girl, was barefooted as others were also. They had been surprised in the early morning. She stopped and cut off pieces of her buffalo robe to tie about her feet to keep them warm as she ran. When they got to the camp of Snake Indians further down the river, My wife told me she was also with the Cheyans when they surrendered to General Custer in 1869.

After he had smoked the pipe with their chiefs, when they surrendered, some of the chiefs were put into prison and had chains upon their ankles. When I heard all of this from my wife as well as from many of the other Southern Cheyans, it seemed the great medicine may have directed Custer to his death as punishment for having broken his promise to the Cheyans. So eventually they do go back north and they reestablish reservations up in the north and eventually wooden leg proceeds up there as well. And when he gets up there, it seems like things are in a pretty bad way. Back to the book. The most sorrowful new condition we found in coming back to our Cheyenne country was in the case of Little Wolf. himself. Some white man about the fort were selling or giving whiskey to the Indians.

One night, Little Wolf got a bottle of whiskey and right away he drank all of it. He went into the fort, Traders' store, and leaned forward upon the counter. He was quiet, but he was dizzy and stumbling here and there. The trader said, Little Wolf, you'd better go to your lodge. But he said, no, I want to stay here. Some Cheyenne men and women were playing cards at a table in the store famished elk a young man sergeant of the scouts was with them he talked a little wolf but the old chief paid no attention to his talk famished wolf took hold of little wolf's arm and said come i will help you to get you to your lodge he spoke and acted respectfully but little wolf was angered because of the taking hold of him he pulled himself away his eyes blazed

like fire he stood a moment looking at the young man then he said i will kill you he said he staggered alone, on out from the store. Famished Elk returned to sit in the card game. Nobody was expecting any further trouble. But not long afterward, the door was opened and the little wolf stumbled into the room. He straightened himself out, leveled a rifle, and fired. Famished Elk sank down dead upon the floor. The old chief went back to his lodge and told his two wives what he had done.

We must go, he added. The three of them went out into the darkness of the night. Soldiers and Cheyenne searched for them. They searched during the next day and the next. The missing man and his two wives appeared in Miles City and sat themselves down at a place in plain view of the people there. A captain and some soldiers went to him. The captain we knew as little chief.

He told Little Wolf what it was he had done. He said, he further told him, You are no more a chief of the Cheyennes. That is true and just, little wolf agreed. He was not punished in any other way, but he further punished himself. Before he and his wives had left their lodge, he smashed into pieces his medicine pipe. Our old tribal laws required this. It was not allowable for him afterward to smoke.

It was allowable for him afterward to smoke all alone in any small and short-stemmed pipe, such as might be made from a deer-leg bone, but he did not do this. He denied himself all smoking. He never made any offer even to sit in the company of other Cheyenne smoking together. White men offered him sometimes cigarettes, but he always refused them. After a time he learned to chew tobacco a habit never followed by the old-time Cheyenne's. It seemed he did this deliberately for self-humiliation. He never tried to intrude himself on any tribal public affairs.

The people remembered his great services in past times, but nobody consulted him on tribal matters in present times. Truly, in every way, he was never more a chief among the Cheyennes. So, alcohol, not good, not good for your decision-making processes. Back to the book, when I was 31 years old in 1889, I enlisted with other Cheyennes to form a new band of scouts. for the soldiers at Fort Keough. For a long time, we did not do much except drill and work at getting out logs from the timber and building houses for ourselves.

So he joins the army. He joins the army becomes a scout. We Cheyenne scouts did not get into any battle. At one time, we were all dressed and ready, but the officers made us stop behind a hill while the soldiers went on and killed many sue at a camp on a little valley just over the, hill a sue started that fight by killing an officer who was taking all the guns from them the soldiers began to shoot and many women and children were killed as well this trouble was on wounded knee creek at the time of our advance up the hill I was wearing a war bonnet for the first time in any battle so he's talking about

they were present at the at the massacre at wounded at wounded knee which was a horrible massacre committed you can hear there was between 150 and 300 Sue were killed by soldiers and it included probably about half of them were women and children and

later he's talking about some dreams that he has back to the book I believe I slept but I'm not sure whether I was sleeping and dreaming or I was only lying there and thinking I kept my cartridge belt buckled on me and I hugged my rifle to my body. It seemed that angry Sioux Indians were all

about me. They were searching for me to kill me. Some of them were striking at me with war clubs and slashing at me with knives. I heard them calling my name, wooden leg. I jumped up and stood there wide awake. So he's having nightmares. He's massacre happens and he feels like, obviously, subconsciously, he's got some nightmares about that. Now back to the story of Little Wolf, the chief that shot the other Indian at the card game. Back to the book, one day I saw the old man Little Wolf at the camp. This is years later. I said to my wife, I see Little Wolf.

He's my relative. One of his wives is a sister of my father. I think I ought to invite him to eat at our lodge. I'm glad to hear you say that, she answered. Tell him to come now. Right away, she began to prepare bread and meat and coffee. When I brought little wolf around, I found he was partly drunk. He fumbled the food, and he sat and ate.

He ate freely as though he were very hungry. He kept quiet and kept looking downward during all the time. When he was done eating, I told him of my sympathy with him in his great trouble. He then told me all about the affair. I loved the young man and all of his people. I was crazy when I shot him. At this time in the conversation, Little Wolf was about 70 years old. This man gave away all of his horses after he'd been put out of his position as our greatest chief.

After that, all of his traveling was done afoot. Sometimes he went alone, sometimes one or both of his wives accompanied him. They took along whatever packs they could carry and they slept in temporary shelters or with no shelter. He went at times to visit the crows. He visited also the Arapahos in Wyoming, walking 200 miles or more, back and again. He died in 1904 at the age of 83 years. His wives and close friends stood his body upright on a high hill overlooking the Rosebud Valley where many Cheyans had their reservation homes.

A great heap of stones was built to enclose him thus standing upright. Twenty-four years later, his bones were brought to the agency cemetery and put into a grave there. Bird, the old-time Indian story white man who lives in New York, had a stone put at the head of this agency grave. Even in the nearest of relatives of famished elk never kept bad hearts against little ones. Wolf. At different times, I have heard talk of him from Bald Eagle, a brother of the young man killed. Bald Eagle said, Little Wolf did not kill my brother. It was the white man whiskey that did it. Now we fast forward. Thirty years after the great battle against Custer, there was a gathering of Indians and white people at Little Big Horn. The Cheyennes and some other Indians went with a few

soldiers to Fort Custer, not far from the place where the great battle had been. The soldiers at the fort shook hands with all of us. We gathered together and some friendly speeches were made by the officers and Indians. All I said was, a long time ago, we were enemies. Today, we are friends. And going even further into the adult, 50 years old now, Wooden Leg says, I was baptized by the priest at Tongue River Mission when I was almost 50 years old. My wife and our two daughters were baptized too. I think the white people pray to the same great medicine we do in our old Cheyenne way. I do not go to church often, but I do go sometimes.

I think the white church people are good, but I do not believe all the stories they tell about what happened a long time ago. the way they tell us all the good people in the old times were white people. I'm glad to have the white man churches among us, but I feel more satisfied when I make my prayers in the way I was taught to make them. My heart is much more contented when I sit alone with my medicine pipe and talk with the great medicine about whatever may be troubling me. We had good medicine men in the old times. It may be that they did not know as much about sickness as the white men doctors know,

but our doctors knew more about Indians and how to talk to them. Our people then did not die young so much as they do now. Now, Wooden Leg had a couple daughters, and he talks about them here. The younger daughter fell into an illness when she was about 14 years old. We expected she would soon be herself again, but she grew worse instead of better. She became so weak

She could not stay at school any longer She continued to go downward After we brought her into our home Finally Her spirit went back to the great medicine All of our love was now fixed upon the other daughter She advanced to full young womanhood She could read the white man books

She could write letters to our friends far away But she too became ill Same as her younger sister During all of one winter she gradually wasted away. Every afternoon her body burned with fever. Every night her bed was soaked with sweating. Every morning she coughed almost just strangling. Neither the medicines of the agency physician

nor the prayers of our own medicine men could help her. Just when the spring grass was coming up, she was buried in our mission cemetery. My heart fell down to the ground. I decided then that the white man's school is not good for Indian children. I think they do not get enough of meat at the boarding school. I think that they are kept in school too much during the year.

They ought to be out and free to go as they please during all the good weather of the autumn and the spring. And the book closes out in the last years of Wooden Leg's life, and he's old and he's respected, and he's living. safely on a reservation. And he says, it is comfortable to live in peace on the reservation.

It is pleasant to be situated where I can sleep soundly every night without fear that my horses may be stolen or that myself or my friends may be crept upon and killed. But I like to think about the old times. When every man had to be brave, I wish I could live again through some of the past days when it was first thought of every prospering Indian. The first thought of every prospering Indian was to send out the call. Oh, friends, come.

Come. Come. I have plenty of buffalo meat. I have coffee. I have sugar. I have tobacco. Come, friends. feast and smoke with me.

And I'll tell you that I miss those days too. When every man had to be brave. When comfort was no guarantee, when life itself wasn't a guarantee. And I think that is one of the lessons to be taken. from wooden leg is something you hear me say often is that you have to cherish it cherish the struggle the suffering the risk don't shy away from it but instead cherish it and another piece that i find so important, so

reinforcing to what I see in the world, is look at how the Cheyennes were beaten. It wasn't in war. It wasn't in battle. They weren't defeated by the white man's guns or the white man's tactics

convinced to take an easier path. And enticed by the comfort of the reservations where food and shelter and tobacco and alcohol were all readily available and they weren't defeated in some decisive battle by weapons or by war they were defeated and controlled by one tiny seemingly insignificant surrender at a time giving up their land

and then giving up their horses and then giving up their guns and they were tricked they were lied to and the word was not kept and the promises were not kept but they gave up their ability to fight back it's hard to guard against that it's hard to even see it happening because it's like trying to watch an hour hand move you don't see it you don't see it move Then you turn around in this beautiful and this magnificent warrior culture is relegated to whiskey and dependency and entrapment on reservations. And I think that's an important message. I think that's an important message for our culture. This culture that we have now, the culture of creativity. and of open-mindedness and of strength and of individual freedom

day vigilant we need to stand guard against small infractions that may seem meaningless and insignificant but that will chip away at who we are as a people

and as a culture and the Native Americans I mean we could go on and on about the bravery that those warriors showed even past this period in World War II there's story upon story about the bravery that they showed in the Vietnam War Native Americans that served with honor and courage. We have to learn more than just that.

And I think it's the same thing on an individual level as well. Because it's not that we as people, it's not that we as an individual, as a person, it's not that you wake up one day and you decide that's it. I give up. I'm going to be weak now. I'm just going to just surrender everything to be comfortable. We don't do that in one day. It doesn't happen.

It's not one decision. It's a slow, incremental process that just chips away. It chips away at our will and chips away at our discipline. We wake up a little bit later and we miss a workout, then we miss another one. Then we just start to eat what we shouldn't eat. We start to drink what we shouldn't drink. And without even realizing it one day, you wait a workout. up and you become something that you never would have allowed and instead of

strong you're weak instead of being disciplined you are disorganized and you are lost and instead of moving forward and progressing you are moving backward and you are decaying and that happens without us even seeing it without us recognizing it so you have to be vigilant. Have to be on guard. You have to hold the line. Even on the seemingly insignificant little things, things that shouldn't matter,

but those things do matter. And instead of going backward, instead of decaying, get stronger, get better, grow, and learn and develop and live. And live in such a way that you don't remember the old days with sorrow that they are gone but with pride and with gratitude that those old days led you to where you are today

a place of wisdom and a place of knowledge and a place of experience and a place of peace and I certainly hope that Wooden Legg found his peace the great medicine. You know how in, I don't know if I, I mean, you're probably one of the few people that I know anyway that probably didn't go through high school

and think about history class, think, when am I ever gonna use this? A lot of us think thought that. And like this kind of stuff, right? Like actual stuff. History. This is history that should have been in history class. And it probably was, yeah.

You had to have learned about about a little bit. Yeah you you had to have you may not remember it I don't remember from high school that was whatever 40 something you're Wounded knee rings a bell right you know yeah so that was probably That attitude for most of us like when are we gonna use this why do I got to know this you know 17776 like why do why do why why how is gonna help me in my job That I'm gonna be you know a doctor whatever even if you had you need high aspirations so this that last part you just said but that's that's why for real the what part what do you mean the whole part the whole part okay yeah at the end where you're like okay look and here's

how it was explained to me by my mom and dad history is important because you have all the people that you learn about all the events you learn about you learn lessons out of it of course as a kid You're like, all right, well, you know, I'm just memorizing dates and events here. But they're like, no, you learn lessons. Like history, you know, wars, all the, this is all the, it's all to, like, settle problems. You've got to learn lessons from history. I'm like, all right, I get it. This, I think, on an, like, on a group level, you can learn a lot of lessons, of course, from history.

This on an individual level, everybody, especially now, bro. Now it's like, I was thinking about this today. Okay, we're done driving home. I went to the pumpkin patch. Right. And the punts and patches. It's a, it's really cool. It's a, it was down in Bonita.

It wasn't like a built one and a parking lot that you go through. It was like a legit one. And I'm hardly anyone there. And my daughter's running around. And, you know, my wife comes from the country and stuff. So she's like, see, this kind of pumpkin patch is great compared to the ones that built in the parking lot. And I'm thinking, that's where we are today. Where, oh, not a pumpkin patch.

Let's go build a pumpkin patch. Like that's how little really we have to do. We're building pumpkin patches so you can go experience a pumpkin patch. On pavement. Yes, in a parking lot. Yeah, when we're done with this, you know, build thing. We get, you know, you have shows on TV. I always harp on reality TV, but man, this is the reality of it.

Where we have time now, the time and the inclination to sit and watch hours of just other people. living their lives. That's it. That's just embarrassing. That's where we are today. I'm not saying we all do it, but I'm saying we can if we want. Yeah, we can if we want. That's where we are. Okay. So consider that. That's the opposite of this. That's like basically what you're talking about right here. Yeah. Where you're like, okay, the more like kind of, you didn't really say avoid luxury, nothing like that, but basically you're, keep your capability in check. You know, like, I don't want to miss the old day. when I was capable, you know, because I gave it up to be more comfortable.

That's the lesson, I think, that you can learn individually. Yeah, no doubt. And I think even, you know, the culture, we're talking about cultures, the cultures of warriors that, you know, they got overrun by the white man, right? Overrun by the white man. Now, there was brutal battles and we're going to go. I mean, you could spend all day talking about, but we're talking, I'm just, I'm just speaking about one aspect of this. You had incredible warrior cultures that had lived this way for unknown amount of time, thousands of years.

And in, what, 50 years or something, 100 years, it was completely different for them. And yeah, and what I'm saying is you think that they got lost or destroyed or there was this battle? Like, no, if you hear that story, it wasn't a fight to the death. It was a slow, just crumbling away of their culture, the way they had it. And, you know, and from a perspective of, I mean, another lesson that can be taken away from this, that's, you know, we talk about this all the time. That was a, it's a form of negotiation, right? Listen, hey, don't worry about it. Just come a little bit further.

You know, just move a little bit further down the path. Move a little bit further down the path. Move a little bit further down the path. and yeah that's what that's my point is be careful and pay attention to what you're giving up from your from your individual life and from your culture as a as a group right in America right I'm speaking now from my culture as an American that's our culture what are we going to give up where is it going that's what we need to look out for because at some point we can look around.

And it's one thing if we don't have the culture anymore, we don't, we have a different culture, but the thing that I'm talking about, and it's okay for American culture to morph and to grow, that's okay. But what I do, what we do have to watch out for,

is if we ever give up the strength to defend ourselves and say, you know what? Okay, you cross the line. Yeah. And we are not going to do what you're saying right now. Yeah. You know,

that's what we need to be careful of. We can never give up, you know, somebody asked me on Twitter the other day, hey, what's, you know, in 140 characters, what should our foreign policy be?

And I did it in one word. Our foreign policy should be, strength. Yeah. Strength should be our foreign policy. We should be strong. Yeah. And I'm telling you right now,

we've talked about this before, when you are strong and you can defend yourself, And you know that you can handle any problem that comes your way, you're not going to have many problems. Yeah. Right? It's not going to happen. It's when you're weak.

It's when you let your guard down. That's when you have problems. Yeah. And strength, essentially capability, right? And I'm not saying, I'm not talking about the foreign policy thing at all. You don't go down that path with me? No, I mean, not now, but none of it. Okay, so you know, like CrossFit, for example.

Mm-hmm. Right. Oh, yeah, okay. Well, by strength, I don't just mean strength like that. Of course, I mean skill. I mean the ability. Capability is straight up. I stand corrected.

Yeah, no, I didn't mean to correct. Of course. I meant like, you know, more like that. You know, I'm contributing. You know, what's like contributing? But you know how, okay, so I remember when CrossFit fit exploded onto the scene and people got real into it. And sometimes people would get criticized.

Like, man, you're doing this, all this crazy work. You're just getting good. at working out. Like you're trying to get into this crazy shape for nothing. Like, what are you training for? You're not training for sport. You're just training. I mean, I'm sure you could actually, same could kind of be said about you. You're waking up every day, training all hard, like,

for what? And you're like for life. Yeah. Right. So you're training for capability. I'm capable. Are you capable? And what level of capability do you have, you know? So people who've spent like a, and this

by no means is any kind of judgment. But if you spent your life neglecting your health or your capability, you know, you can be less well-off. You're not going to be very well-off. So with that, there is that caution. Like, this is the tale, a cautionary tale, one of the many probably over history, where if you are capable, even if it doesn't seem like your environment is testing that capability, bro, watch out. Yes. Yes.

Test the capability yourself. Yeah. Is it what you've got to do. And test the capability yourself. That's a good thing too. And about spending, too, because the whole system, the system. But especially now, like I said, like, life is luxury right now for us. Where you can, back in the day, you're hunting for food, your starvation.

Here, it's like too much food, for example, one of your examples from before. So it's like, it's luxury. So even, like, consumption, right? What, like, what do you spend your money on, you know? spend money on entertainment seems not really in line with improving your capability. You know, like that's what I remember when we moved. I was like,

I want to get a home gym. And it was pretty expensive, like what I wanted, but it was easily justifiable. Absolutely. Because, and I wasn't thinking in these specific terms, but really,

basically that's what I was thinking. Like, this is going to help me in life. This is going to help me be more capable. way more. And I already had a gym membership. But you want the home gym. You want the home gym.

You're going to be even more capable overall. I'm just saying. So a lot of times that alone can justify like certain types of consumption. For sure. Yeah. If you're, yeah,

absolutely. I don't even think. When it comes to me to making expenditures on things that are going to make me better. Yeah. There's not even like I don't hesitate on those things. I pulled a trigger. Yeah.

I make it happen. I make it happen. I don't play around. Yeah. Do not play around and I've been known to be pretty tight with my money But not when it comes to something that's gonna make me better. No, when it's real time. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, man, well Amazing book, amazing life

Pick this book up on Amazon.com The book is called Wooden Leg, a warrior who fought Custer, maybe later we'll do some more maybe we'll do the other side of this battle and maybe get a little bit more into the battle. Like I said, there's plenty of lessons learned from Custer. There's plenty of lessons learned there. And there's a lot of controversy around it. And that's what I tried to avoid the controversy. I've tried to stick with just what's being said by Wooden Leg himself. There's a lot of controversy about this battle and who did what and who is to blame and what mistakes were made. And they're all, what what I take from all those things? I'll learn from all of them. I'll learn from

every theory. I'll learn from all of them. That's my goal. But we'll definitely get into that. this book is just a great read. The more you can fill your head up with different perspectives. And the more you can pay attention to the Native American and learn more about their culture, awesome culture. Warrior culture. Yes, a warrior culture. Love that.

And like I said, you know, serve with honor in all of our wars here, you know, which is, we should probably do a whole podcast about Native Americans fighting in World War II in Vietnam. And in the current conflicts we have. So you can pick that up on Amazon, on the interwebs. And if you want to help the podcast, you can actually do a little click-through of Amazon. Yeah, I was going to say, I'll put that book link on the website.

Click on it. It'll take you right to the book. And as far as Amazon goes in general, there's a click-through on the website. So it doesn't matter what you're going to buy. Correct. From Amazon. If you want to support the podcast. Right.

That's, you know, that's essentially what we're talking about here. If you want to invest three to five seconds opening that page and clicking through, you want to support the podcast, that's a great way to do it. It doesn't cost anything. Yeah, getting in the game, making yourself us, everyone really more capable. Yes, let's improve all of our capabilities. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah, click through Amazon. Boom.

Go to the website, click through and save it to your favorites. It's a little trick. little efficient trick, support actively, passive. Yeah, real active. Aggressively. Aggressively. Also, speaking of making yourself capable

supplementation. Man, I still haven't gotten Creel oil yet. I'll make that order tonight. But krill oil... This is no longer on me. Yeah, yeah. It's on you now. Yeah, yeah. We took the steps.

Yeah, we're doing it. Yeah. It's, well, it was always on me. Let's face it. it's fun to put it on you but nonetheless krill oil is would you say that's the main one man I've been

I've been on krill oil for a long time and I dig it yeah there it is krill oil warrior bars these are just ones I'm recommending trim tech just get your shirt tech together go to on it

on it dot com slash jockos that's for 10% off but if you didn't know what on it is it's just the best supplements we'll just say that They have some other cool stuff on there too, but anyway. Indeed.

That's the one. Dope. I think they have some new stuff coming out too. We'll talk about that next time. I've got to do an evaluation on that one. But yeah, on it is dope. And of course, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. If you haven't already.

Yeah. That's a good one. And tell your friend. Yeah, tell your friend. And here's the... Tell all your friends, both of them. Yeah. To subscribe to the podcast.

Here's it's I mean I guess it's kind of obvious For us to say hey tell your friends about our podcast You know that makes sense But when you tell your friends about like Okay so I have a friend Who has a friend

Our friends two of them They listen to this podcast Oh it's back on Jocko We knew them for a long time They listen and they tell their other friend I didn't know this But I see on Facebook Thank you for telling me about Jocko podcast

I didn't know all this stuff So these were people that know us but didn't know about the podcast. No, too, yeah. Well, no, no. Two people knew us, knew the podcast. Okay. Apparently had told some people he was thinking I'm officially. Here's the thing.

The more people who act like, I don't know, take anything you talk about, extreme ownership, we'll say. Anybody. Good book, by the way. Good one. Good. But just the concept of the extreme ownership. Right.

You get somebody implementing extreme ownership by a factor of 10% in their life. And they're in your life. That's an improved life. That is an improved life. That's why you, I would say, that's, that reason alone is a good reason. Tell someone about the podcast. Yeah, no, I mean, I hear from people that say the podcast has helped them out greatly, which is the best, it's why we're sitting here, right?

Because if I didn't hear that from anybody, if we got no feedback, maybe we wouldn't be doing the podcast right now. Maybe we wouldn't have learned about wooden leg tonight. Yep. Yeah, agree. So, yeah, tell your friends. about the podcast. Yeah,

get them in the game for sure. And tell them about that YouTube channel. The YouTube channel, right? The YouTube channel's good. Echo putting up videos almost on a daily rate right now. Oh, wait, no, we don't. I'm working on a good one.

It's different. Yeah, I'll let you know. I'll see if I can't get it up in the next week or so. But it'd be good. And yes, I promise I'll put more videos on there, but subscribe to YouTube. Yeah.

You heard that, folks. Above and beyond just a podcast video. Promise. Yeah. There you go. The vague promise, by the way. I'm going to put more videos on. That's like one.

Yeah. It's all right. YouTube videos. And of course, if you're into t-shirts, go to Jocco store. Or rash gardens. Here's the thing about the rash garden. I'm not a scientist, officially. But, you know, the 19% improvement of performance.

If you wear the rash guard. Yeah. that we it's starting to look like that is factual yeah yeah so what do you call it

not proven but what do you call it confirmed confirmed UFC fighter nine year veteran UFC fighter currently fight in the UFC

confirmed it confirmed so he can tell bro if anyone can tell he can tell measurable scientific scientific

why don't you say his name because while I'm saying this I'm contemplating, should I say, the name is Cole Miller. Yeah, we know who it is. The man. Cole. Cole Miller did confirm that his jiu-jitsu was 19% better on the mat. Confirmed.

Confirmed, yeah. And again, that's, you know, if you were going to be doing some kind of a scientific experiment, you'd want some kind of a doctor. Yes. You know, somebody with a Ph.D. Expert. Some of them expert. Yeah. You got your expert right there.

Nope. There you go. Got Cole Miller. Sick jiu-jitsu, by the way. Yeah. He's, he's no. He sees it. He feels 19%. Yep.

Proof. He's training with, he was training with Rowan. Yeah. There's a few people. I trained with that guy. I trained with him one time in that, and Hotlanda. Yeah. Yeah.

That was like the first time I ever went into a place. And I walked in, I was like, hey, man, I just want to train. And he looks at me. Rowan. Rowan, Roniero, I think. And he's in the UFC, too. But I shook his hand. And this was like 10 years ago or something.

I shook his hand. I was like, hey, man, good to meet you. I'm just here to train. Can I train? on your mats and he's like yeah are you a black belt he asked me that and i was like yeah i am and i don't know how he could tell right right he could just tell you do yeah he's like are you a black belt i said yeah man my black belt should go out let's do this but he's a awesome guy too man super super nice guy but um hopefully maybe we need to get him rash card too you know and that's not just

for jiu jitzy that's for um you know whatever any physical activity that you need some some what do you call range of motion that that that if that if you're not that if you're that means something you get the rash card it looks dope too for people who have a certain level of aesthetic standard for those of you that care yeah about that kind of stuff i know yeah you know you're here to win i dig it i dig it man i dig it in respect for that but in the event of you caring what you look like we've got many many compliments on the look of the rash card so just look at it jocco store dot com you can look at the rash card look at the shirts if you like them go ahead Get one.

You can support that way. Yeah, that's a good way to support. You don't need to donate money. Just look at them. If you like them, go ahead, get one. There you go. If you get one, you got to buy one, of course. But I'm just saying, I'm not saying, hey, go buy their shirt.

I'm saying, check it out. Look at it. If you like how they look, then, boom. If you like what they say, how they make you feel. Go ahead and do that, right? Or if you just straight up need 19% improvement in your juzie game, they just get one. Or if you just need a T-shirt.

That's true. Oh, we have hoodies, too, by the way, coming out. One, two weeks, two more weeks. One more week? Whatever. It was good. All right. All right.

Yeah, some patches coming out to some Velcro stuff. Just, yeah. There's some good stuff on there. Check it out if you like. Cool. And we might have some tea. White tea. We do have.

We do have Jocka white tea. And I'm going to tell you, we didn't expect Jocka white tea to sell like crazy. No, aggressive. But it's old. You guys, all that are listening this, you guys got after it, and all the white tea is gone. Luckily. I apologize for that number one

and you know what they took it completely off of Amazon they pulled it down yeah they did I went to because I was gonna I was gonna tweet out some of the awesome reviews that it got yeah sorry like people that are now deadlifting 8,000 pounds by the way

no it's a fact a guy review you read it on that yeah he said his his deadlift went from 405 you know 4005 pounds to 8000 pounds with jocco white tea so there you have it That's worth it in its own right. So you always say on it,

supplementation is good. I don't see if, you know, a 7,500 pound improvement. So, yeah, so the Jock-Wite tea is sold out right now, but by that,

well, there's more coming. And depending on when you're listening, this is, what is today, October 15th? Yes, it's October 15th.

So right now it's sold out. It'll be back in full stock. And not only do we have the tin, the deluxe tin, that you can buy, but you're going to also be able to buy a reload, just a box with a hundred, a hundred count in there. And some people, someone wrote a bad review on Amazon. Good.

And they said, hey, your price is too high, bro. I love the podcast, but you can't sell me this jocco white tea for this amount of money. That's not cool. And so I talked to my tea people. Sure. And I said, tea people. Emily. our price is too high.

What are we going to do about this? And she said, well, your price is high because you wanted to get this special hardcore tin to serve it in. And I was like, well, yeah, because we believe in quality, right? And so we want to have something that is like tough. So we got the tin.

And she said, well, that 10 costs a bunch of money to make and get sent over here and all this other stuff. And I said, okay, well, how can we make it cheaper? So we got a box with 100 in it, up the volume, lower the price. So now no one's going to be able to complain about the price because it's going to be on a par with any other white tea, except for it's going to make you be able to deadlift 8,000 pounds.

Yeah, that's a win-in-way there. Which is definitely worth it. I'd pay premium price for that. So it's good to go. Yeah, so check out the jocco white tea, and it's, uh, every, it's, it did sell out, and reason it sold out is because people were buying it.

They bought one and then they bought five more. Yeah. Because it tastes so good, and people are drinking it pre-jiu-jitsu, drinking it in the morning, drinking it before a test. They're just drinking it all the time. It just tastes good. It replaces every other substance you need to drink. Pretty soon.

Pretty soon you're going to be going out to a club, and there's people going to be like, oh, can I get you a drink, sir? Yeah, I'll take a jockey white tea. They're going to have it on tap. They're going to have it on tap. Interesting how you call the tin. What do you call it, deluxe?

What did you call it something? Durable? No, you know, I think you said like luxury or something. something premium premium no you said something luxury I don't know something like that nonetheless we'll play back to tape nonetheless this is like this is like a bunker more it's not luxury oh yeah yeah it's well we don't we we don't make things we'll how it reinforced that's a reinforced and what's cool is guess what holds the pen on the pens on my desk now yeah one of these guess what holds a bunch of nails out in my garage

one of these that is hard core I told you the other day I like things that have dual purpose This is one of those things. Dual purpose. You're going to do something else with it. Yeah. There's a little book you can get. It's called Extreme Ownership. It's about combat leadership.

If you like the podcast, check out the book. And also you can check out the audio book that Laif Babin, who wrote the book with me. We read it. So it's just more of us talking. Check it out. That's extreme ownership. And also, of course, if you feel, You want to keep talking to Echo Charles and I?

Believe it or not, you can just do it. You can talk to us. We're there, and we're on the interwebs. And if you're on the interwebs and we're on the interwebs, that means we can communicate. A little thing called Twitter. On Twitter, Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocko Willink.

And remember when I said I was like going to back off Twitter? I've been holding the line on Twitter. I'm ridiculous. But I just hammer it. When I get, what I do is when I travel. When I travel, I got to sit in an airport. No, I'm not going to, I don't walk around in circles. I don't, I don't watch movies.

No, I either read for the podcast or I hammer Twitter. So, yeah, that's what's going on. That's good to do for obviously for obvious reasons, but it kind of keeps you informed. Absolutely. You know how like, oh, it's getting too, too many, you know, a lot of people follow you. You know, so if they're, if you get a certain number of people following you, You can't respond to everything we can't read. So a lot of times people will be like, hey, let me hire someone to do that.

You know? Yeah, that's not. Or, hey, you know, I'm not going to spend more time on there or whatever because I'm too busy. So instead of just maybe, you know, they'll just be completely not be on it, you know. Yeah, they'll post stuff and then just kind of be it. That'll be it. But, boy, you're in touch now. You know what's going on.

Yeah, and I get a lot of good feedback. Got a lot of good questions. Yeah. Got a lot of good questions. And so that's worth it. So if you want to, yeah. Twitter, Instagram, and that face, Bucky.

We're both on there as well. And that is kind of where we're at with this whole gig. Now, I guess to close it out tonight, since we don't have time for questions, you know, I just want to say thanks to everybody for listening.

Thanks for everybody, all the feedback that you're giving me. Hey, I'm hearing so much from, first of all, military guys military service members that are out getting after it guys overseas right now that are crushing the enemy

godspeed keep getting after it stay aggressive absolutely stay safe to police officers which I hear a ton from back here you guys thanks for what you do thanks for keeping us safe I can't even imagine

having that job to be honest with I can't imagine having that job I don't have the temperament for that job. It's not, it's not, it's not for me. And for those of you that do that job, stay strong. I know it's hard times right now. A lot of risk out there, a lot of aggressiveness of you guys are in a extremely precarious position. Every single day, by the way, every single call, every single moment. So, thank you for what you do. Firefighters, of course, same thing. You guys getting after it. And, just running towards fire, right?

That's overcoming an instinct. That's what you do for a living. So thank you for what you do. Then, of course, we have all the workforce out there that is building and creating things and making things happen. And you are grinding and you are building your world and you're building our world. And so thank you for doing that. Of course and most important as you roll through and as you continue think about

wooden leg think about living hard think about holding the line think about being vigilant and stay uncomfortable stay of the dick and you do that by getting out there getting after it until next time this is echo and jocco