The snow-scoured hills and buttes of the Missouri Breaks are dotted with isolated houses, until the sudden appearance of the Oceti Sakowin encampment on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The presence of so many people catches at the heart. Snow-dusted tepees, neon pup tents, dark-olive military tents, brightly painted metal campers, and round solid yurts shelter hundreds on the floodplain where the Cannonball River meets the Missouri. Flags of Native Nations whip in the cutting wind, each speaking of solidarity with the Standing Rock tribe’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, or D.A.P.L., owned by Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics. This pipeline would pass beneath the Missouri River and imperil drinking water not only for the tribe but for farmers, ranchers, and townspeople all along the river's course.

Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Fires, refers to the seven divisions of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota, people who are perhaps best known for their resistance to colonization (Little Big Horn, 1876), their suffering (Wounded Knee, 1890), and their activism (Wounded Knee, 1973). One of their most famous leaders, Sitting Bull, was murdered in the town that is now their tribal headquarters, Fort Yates. Down the road from Fort Yates is the town of Cannonball, named for the large round stones polished by the whirlpool that marked the convergence of the two rivers, just outside the Oceti Sakowin camp. The round stones disappeared when the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Missouri, in a giant project that lasted from 1948 to 1962. The result of that project, Lake Oahe, flooded Standing Rock’s most life-giving land. The Lakota were forced onto the harshly exposed grazing uplands, and they haven’t forgotten that, or much else. History is a living force in the Lakota way of life. Each of the great events in their common destiny includes the direct experience of ancestors, whose names live on in their descendants. It is impossible to speak of what is now happening at Standing Rock without taking into account the history, as well as the intense spirituality, that underlies Seven Fires resistance.

On December 3rd, veterans from all over the country began to arrive at Standing Rock. Jack Dalrymple, the governor of North Dakota, and the Army Corps of Engineers had called for the camp to be cleared of protesters, who from the beginning have preferred the term “water protectors,” on the 5th. Vehicles were lined up for nearly a mile to get into the camp. It did not seem possible that many more people could fit onto the space, but somehow the camp seemed to morph to hold envoys from all over the globe. To name a few: Maori, Muslims, delegations of priests and ministers, people from more than ninety Native Nations, plus any number of Europeans, and various rock stars. The curious came, the bold, the devoted, not to mention the Water Wookie Warriors, whose pop-up camper had a “Star Wars” theme; passionate young Native people as well as seasoned elders joined the resistance camp. The arrival of veterans adept at winter survival and ready to join the fight against the pipeline was yet another influx.

A small group of veterans in various patterns of camouflage gathered before their first briefing, standing in the sun outside the tiny plywood and thermal-sheathed headquarters at the eastern edge of Oceti Sakowin. There had been rumors that supply stores in the area were not serving anti-D.A.P.L. customers, and that police were blocking or fining anyone who attempted to bring building supplies to Standing Rock. But, a few feet away, supplies were being unloaded and a barracks was quickly taking shape. A tall, rugged National Guardsman wearing a wool stocking hat and a tactical desert scarf talked to me before the briefing began.

“I have been on the front lines of other protests, but I’m here because of the brutality of this police response,” he said. “They thought they were way out here and could do anything.”

On October 7th, Dalrymple had requested backup for the Morton County police under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is normally used for natural disasters. Officers from twenty-four counties and sixteen cities in ten different states responded, bringing military-grade equipment, including Stingrays (cell-site simulators) and armored personnel carriers purchased under recent federal grants. On the night of November 20th, police weaponized water against the water protectors, causing seizures and hypothermia. The next day, the county sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier, said, at a press conference, “It was sprayed more as a mist, and we didn’t want to get it directly on them, but we wanted to make sure to use it as a measure to help keep everybody safe.”

As we waited at the camp, in warm sun, I asked veterans at what moment they had decided to meet here. Most of them talked first about online videos of riot-gear-clad police using water cannons in subfreezing weather, of masked police tear-gassing water protectors, of Native people being maced as they held their hands up, and of the use of attack dogs. The disturbing scenes initiated by the Morton County police and other police units were instrumental in activating increased support for Oceti Sakowin.

“I am here because of state violence on behalf of a corporation,” Matthew, a genial, lightly dressed man, said. He’d put nineteen hundred and ninety miles on his modest sedan driving from Florida with a group of veterans. Some said that they regarded maintaining a clean water supply as a homeland-security issue, and corporate greed as the enemy. Other veterans talked about the oath they had taken to defend their country from “enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Brandee Paisano, a cheerful, fit, and forthright Navy veteran from the Laguna Pueblo tribe, said that she was there to keep the oath she had taken on enlistment. “I signed up to be of service, foreign and domestic. As a Native woman, it’s even more important for me to be strong and support my people.” She was also there to uphold the Constitution, she said. Many of the veterans recited parts of the Constitution–the First Amendment was mentioned most often.

Native Americans serve in the military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. More non-Native people probably get to know American Indians via the military than any other way, except perhaps living in a city. (Urban Natives constitute more than half of the over-all U.S. Native population.) People in the military quickly become bound by mutual need, if not extreme duress. These are lasting friendships.

A veteran sporting reflective sunglasses and an undercut man-bun hopped up on a tree stump and began explaining that the mission many of them had in mind—to link arms in front of the water protectors while wearing their uniforms, walk forward, and take whatever punishment the Morton County police cared to deal them—was probably not on the Standing Rock tribe’s agenda.

“So if you hear a battle buddy talking about charging the fence, reel him in. This isn’t our mission. We’re here as an asset,” he said. “And if you come across a ceremony or hear singing, take off your hat, lock it up, and stand there.”

Later that day, tribal leaders held a meeting at Sitting Bull College. Two local veterans, Loreal Black Shawl and Brenda White Bull, took charge.