The events of the 20th of November convinced me that I was going to go up to Standing Rock, and join the Water Protectors for a few days, at least. As I started getting prepared, Wesley Clark Jr. announced the "Veterans Stand With Standing Rock" mission, and it seemed like a good way for me to go up there. Unfortunately, it overlapped with my work schedule, but I managed to move a trip back, and have barely enough time to go up there with them, and back. I have all of my military extreme cold weather gear, from my seven years of being based in North Dakota, and the group was encouraging at least partial uniform wear. The optics of a bunch of veterans standing up for the Constitutional rights of the natives appealed to me. Once I started getting emails from the group to organize the trip, though, it became clear that it wasn't quite as good a fit as I had thought. They were planning on meeting up at a few places in each state, and either carpooling or taking buses together to North Dakota. I was taking my partner's (old) truck, and a large load of firewood, so I wouldn't be able to keep up. And the nearest gathering point for me would be Tucson, effectively back-tracking before starting the trip. So, in the end, I chose to go alone, and meet them there.

I loaded up the truck on the 1st of December, ready to leave pre-dawn on the second, to make it in the two days they had planned. I should have looked more closely at the distance, but it at least seemed doable, with an overnight at my brother's, north of Denver. Many other people in Bisbee had asked me to take donations with me, so I had the bed of the truck full of oak firewood, the metal toolbox full of tools, and other gear, and the cab two thirds full of my own gear, with a little room left for me. I followed their packing list to the letter, had plenty of food and water for myself, my own stove and wood fuel for it, a -20 degree bag that fit inside a larger military bag to stay warm, various motocross chest and joint protectors, and even a batting helmet, and a gas mask. Since I wasn't taking any sort of computer, due to the risk of losing it, or it getting ruined, I had my old flip phone, and a paper road atlas.

I left about 4:45 on the morning of the 2nd. The sun rose as I hit I-10 in New Mexico, and soon after, I made my first gas stop. An old V8 powered truck, loaded down...I was going to get about 10mpg, and make a lot of stops. Going up hills, I was often down to 50 mph, and flat out, about 65. Except for when I was completely stopped for road construction on narrow highways. That first day took much longer than I had expected. Glorietta Pass on I-25 was snowing, so I took alternate routes. I hit my first snow north of Las Vegas, NM, though, and it was completely dark again by the time I hit Raton Pass, in a pretty good snow storm. By 10 PM, I was rolling into my brother's driveway.

The morning of the 3rd, I filled up at the nearest truck stop, replaced the windshield wipers, and headed for Nebraska. At Oglalla, I turned north, into the Sand Hills. Narrow roads, steep hills, no shoulder, no guardrails, giant drop-offs, and almost no traffic, or even buildings. The weather was clear, but it was also clear that if I tried to go this way on the way home, during the predicted snow storm, I could be in serious trouble. I reached South Dakota, and was instantly in more familiar country, and with wider roads. It was all secondary roads, so I was making time a lot closer to the Google Maps predictions, but the sun was going down by the time I neared the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation, flocks of pheasants flying across the road in front of me, and it was dark by the time I pulled into Eagle Butte, headquarters for the reservation and rally point for the Veterans Standing With Standing Rock. A guy about my age, wearing a reflective vest, directed me into the Community Center parking lot...and then pointed out that my gas cap was sitting on top of the tool box over the truck bed. I had filled up 150 miles earlier, and left it there, and it hung on for the ride!

I signed in at the Bingo Hall...those at the registration desk told me that 5000 vets had checked in so far, and that they were estimating 12,000 total. I went with a group to go clean out the Boys and Girls Club, to make way for late arrivals, then had some greasy beef stew in the gymnasium, picked out a spot on the floor, and set up my bedroll and sleeping bag. I spent an hour or so watching the interesting things a thousand or so veterans did to set up their personal space (all about a foot from each other), and fell asleep to the sounds of gentle, and not-so-gentle snoring.

I woke up to the sound of some poor guy violently emptying the greasy beef stew from his unhappy digestive tract. That went on for about 30 minutes until someone turned on the lights, and we all got up, and a couple of medics tended to him. Bedrolls put away, folding tables set back up, and oatmeal was served. More busloads of veterans were still arriving, and being shuttled to the Boys and Girls Club. The rest of us were trying to figure out how each of us was going to get into a bus seat with cold weather gear, sleeping bags, extra clothing, and protective gear for rubber bullets and such. We were all told we read the memo wrong, and that those were all suggested items, the bottom line was that we would be transported, by bus, another 107 miles, with all our stuff on our lap, and we should have packed accordingly. Fortunately, I had a pickup truck full of firewood, and permission to fall in behind the convoy of buses, and deliver it to the Oceti Sakowin camp before meeting up with everyone else at Fort Yates, for our billeting assignments, at Noon. The buses took forever to load. I decided to leave early.

I arrived at Fort Yates about 11:30. The only vets there were the few carloads that passed me along the way. No staff, no organizers. We all ended up at a gas station, trying to figure out exactly where we were supposed to be. The same guy who rescued my gas cap got out of his car, and came over to talk to me. His name was Don. He was actually there with Veterans For Peace, a much more experienced, and much smaller, group of vets. They had a gym to sleep in, in the town of Cannonball, very close to the camps. The camps were full. He asked me, "You're with Vets for Peace, aren't you?" The wheels in my head turned a couple times, and I said, "...yes!" He said to follow him, but first, he wanted to visit Sitting Bull's grave. He knew it was close by, somewhere. We drove around at random, and finally, he asked a native woman in a passing car where it was. She led us to it. She explained that Sitting Bull had no sons, but two nephews; Two Bulls and White Bull. Her name was Bonnie White Bull. She gave us some more history, of how the Army had buried him far to the south, but the Hunkpapa Sioux had later brought him up and re-buried him here, where he belonged. She showed us how visitors had left offerings at the grave, tied ribbons, left their respects. I had a pinch of tobacco in my pocket that another vet had given me for such offerings.

Don and I then headed for Cannonball, another 26 miles up the road, to set up camp. But on the road to Cannonball, a line of cars was parking on the shoulder, and he recognized them as VFP members, so we parked. They were going to a meeting at the base of a nearby cell tower. Wes Clark spoke to us, and told us that he had been negotiating with the Sheriff of Morton County, and that he had agreed to remove the barrier from the bridge on Hwy 1806 at 4PM that afternoon. In return, the Veterans would not go up there and perform any direct action, as a show of good faith. (Most of you probably know that the barrier is still there...so much for good faith.)

Then Tulsi Gabbard spoke to us for a few minutes, cheered us on, and then we continued on to set up camp in the gym. We were going to be there three nights, so I set up a cot, draped a wool blanket from my time in Egypt over it, and stashed all my gear underneath. Then we set out to deliver my firewood.

Traffic into the camps was backed up for at least a mile, trying to get in. Each camp was a muddy, snowy, traffic jam. I followed directions to the Sacred Fire, and dropped my wood off at a place where guys were rapidly turning whole logs into firewood...some cutting it into rounds, some splitting the rounds, others stacking the wood. They had quite an assembly line. They were grateful, though, for my seasoned oak, already cut and split. Don wanted to talk to another VFP guy, and we actually found his car in the camp, but not him. Don went looking for him, and I got caught up in a group trying to make a prayer circle, linking arms around the entire camp.

Once it was linked up (it took a half hour or so), one of the elders started a prayer. Soon, there were rumors floating around that the Army Corps of Engineers had denied the permit for drilling under the river, and a little later, an official announcement was made, confirming the rumors. The camp went nuts. I went back to delivering the other supplies Bisbeeites had given me to deliver, medicine, space blankets, tools, and somehow found Don, and we drove back to the gym in Cannonball. There was a note on the door. The gym was going to be used for a bunch of Navajo vets, and we had to move back to Fort Yates, or maybe the nearby Sitting Bull College. Don decided to take a shower. I packed up my stuff, and then tried to deliver some pots to a cook, the son of another Bisbeeite, in the Sacred Stone Camp. I didn't know exactly how to get there, and got stuck in another traffic jam as hundreds of cheering campers left the camps. At least I thought they were leaving...apparently a lot of them were headed out to buy fireworks. But I was unable to find Tawasi, the cook, before the sun went down, and so I headed for Fort Yates. I found one of the charter buses, and decided to follow him. He was lost. Twice in Fort Yates, he had to turn around, which took a three point turn, and me backing up away from him for half a block. Finally, he got back on the highway and headed south, and then took a turn to the southeast that was unfamiliar to me. And then he stopped...a small bridge had a 5 ton limit, and he was over that. Two rented vans full of vets behind me took off around him, so I followed them. They went faster and faster, reaching 70 mph on icy roads, in total darkness, over hills, around curves, sometimes along the river. I did my best to keep up with them, because if I lost sight of their tail-lights, I would be completely lost. I had no idea where we were going. Finally they slowed, and pulled into a little settlement called Kenel, SD, some 50 miles south of the camps, and stopped at yet another gym. I walked in, and saw several familiar VFP faces, camped along the wall, including Don. I had no idea how he did it...though apparently he was wandering around the parking lot of the dark Sitting Bull College, and Janet White bull, the elected Chair of the Kenel community found him, and led the group to her community center. So, I set up camp again, and had another bowl of greasy beef stew (The Vets Standing W/Standing Rock had something like 2600 pounds of the stuff).

We had all heard an address by David Archambault II, the Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ... I may have head it on the radio during my frantic drive... and sat around the table discussing it.

http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/standing-rock-sioux-chairman-calls-...

We deeply appreciate all the people who supported us with their presence, but when this storm passes, it is time to dismantle the camp and return to our homes.

Pass this on—let everyone know that we are thankful for their passion and commitment and we are thankful for them all standing with us. It’s time now to enjoy this winter with your families.

We, the VFP members, all agreed that it was pretty clear...we needed to go home. A storm forecast for the next day meant that we could either leave in the morning, or wait out the storm for a few days. That was an easy choice. Once again we bedded down to the sounds of snoring in yet another gym.

At 1 AM the fire alarm went off, and all the lights came on. There were about 50 guys standing where there had previously been open floor. They had just arrived, and someone was making them a dinner of greasy beef stew, which set off the smoke alarms. They had entered silently, and set up their camps, but the alarm gave them away. They were all Navajo.

About 5:30 I got up, packed up, warmed up the truck, and headed south to look for gas. I ended up crossing the bridge over the Missouri to Mobridge, SD, and found a gas station on the far side of town. A cop followed me back onto the reservation, but eventually turned another direction. I headed back toward Eagle Butte, listening to the local Indian radio station. The DJ was playing song after song to honor the veterans, thanking us for coming, and bringing Standing Rock the needed attention to get the Corps to deny the permit. At the top of the hour, he started an interview, with a member from Veterans for Peace. It was Don! That went on for over an hour, and I finally lost them when I dropped into the Cheyenne River valley...by then they were talking about John Muir and Hetch Hetchy Canyon. Don's got a great radio voice. He's an air traffic controller.

There was a snowstorm on the horizon, and I was determined not to let it catch me in the Sand Hills, so I headed across the Pine Ridge Reservation. Unfortunately, it caught me near the town of Pine Ridge, which was higher up the slope toward the Black Hills than I had figured. Closer to Pine Ridge, it was a whiteout, and I had to carefully turn back, downhill and downwind. I had found another native radio station by then, and was listening to the head of the Oglalla Sioux Reservation Water Service System talk about the tribe's new water system, and his success in getting it installed, in spite of some Army Corps predictions of bankruptcy. But as soon as I left South Dakota, I lost the station, and found a Nebraska station instead. The DJ there was mocking the Corps' decision not to award the permit, and mocking the celebrations by the Water Protectors. He said, "They are all chanting 'water is life' in the Sioux language. I have it written here, but somebody needs to buy a vowel, because I don't know how to pronounce M-N-I" (of mni wiconi). He sounded like a Trump supporter; somebody should have told him to ask Steve Mnuchin, Trump's future Treasury Secretary.

I made it out of the snow, skirted the Sand Hills, stopped at Carhenge, and finally made it back to my brother's house. The next day, off to my sister's house in New Mexico, and finally home, last night. And here I am...a bit baffled by all the celebrations, and ceremonies, that went on after I left, after we were asked to leave.

Before the whiteout