Another Veteran’s Day has come and gone and we were all subjected to commercials, TV shows, news stories, listening to the honor ceremonies at football stadiums, all the tearful and sad stories of our young women and men who are overseas “fighting for our freedom.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am not criticizing them. Many of my ancestors have gone to war for this government and they all came back different, wounded, afflicted with PTSD. Many died before their time due to these circumstances and issues that happened because of those afflictions. I know the government recruits in poverty-stricken areas. I have seen them come to our reservation offering opportunities of a lifetime to our youth when I was in high school and everyone was scared of Saddam Hussein. Many of my classmates signed up, served and came home. Some took advantage of the college opportunity but most came back to the same impoverished reservation to live as they had before, poor.

The fight for water will help us live for many generations and the fight for oil will only help the rich get richer.

I believe they went over with a warrior mentality. I believe in our Lakota ways and this warrior mentality is in our DNA. They deserve thanks and gratitude for serving and being warriors when they had to even though they came home to the same situation and VA healthcare that is no better than our IHS healthcare. The government screwed them over, but I still believe in our warriors.

Even though the “fight for freedom” was really a fight for our oil companies and the whole war started an ongoing war with countries that never had weapons of mass destruction; terror cells and new terrorist groups formed from this. My children, the oldest now 23, have never known a time of peace.

But there is a new war on the horizon, funded only by grassroots. It is getting so huge it is now a global movement. It started growing in April of 2016 as a gathering but the NoDAPL disagreement between the tribe and Energy Transfer Partners out of Dallas, Texas, has been going on for two years over the $3.8 billion pipeline.

This conflict also brought together not only the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) for the first time in a gathering since Custer went down, but tribes from close to 500 nations and indigenous people from as far as New Zealand, Hawaii, and all over the world, not to mention many different nationalities, and people from all different sides of life—cops, veterans, artists, musicians, politicians, teachers, medics, cooks…

The water protectors went to help their brothers and sisters at Standing Rock to fight for water and the sacred land that is being desecrated by big oil companies. These are the same big oil companies the U.S. Government protects by recruiting youth in impoverished areas of the country with promises of opportunities of a better life if they join the “fight for freedom.” That’s the same government that is funding the law enforcement of North Dakota to use military tactics on the peaceful water protectors who are using nonviolent direct action to protect the water and land. Crowd funding for the people at the Standing Rock NoDAPL gathering is sometimes a dollar at a time but it helps; so do donations of food and water and supplies.

So while last week everyone remembered those who “fought for freedom” everywhere and thanked them for protecting us way overseas, I would like to thank the water protectors who left their homes and are there everyday, because the fight for water will help us live for many generations and the fight for oil will only help the rich get richer.

MNI GLONUCA WOPILA!!

(Thank you Water Protectors)

Dana Lone Hill

Last Real Indians