Tim Giago
Native Sun News Today
When Hobart came home on leave in January of 1945 he ran into an old classmate, a U. S. Marine, named Clement Crazy Thunder. Clement was also home on leave and he was also a former student at Holy Rosary.
They drove a pickup truck to Holy Rosary, pulled down the tail gate and got the boys to line up for a wonderful ice cream cone filled with vanilla ice cream. Native Sun News Today owner, Tim Giago, was there and he recalls waiting in line for Hobart and Clement to dish up such a great treat. Many years later after Tim started the Lakota Times Hobart said to him, “If I knew you was going to start a newspaper later in life I would have given you two scoops.” Adding, “No pun intended.”
Joe Tapio, U. S. Navy, also from Pine Ridge, received the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of several sailors, including his commanding officer, when his ship was sunk at Okinawa.
So many warriors from Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Standing Rock, Lower Brule, Cheyenne River, Sisseton/Wahpeton, Crow Creek, Flandreau and Yankton served with honor in all of our Nation’s wars. There is an entire list of Lakota that served in Vietnam and Korea and many more went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not a one of them ever claimed to have bone-spurs.
Using their Native languages they became the Code Talkers with a code the enemy could never break. Rex Herman served as a Marine in Korea.
(Contact the Native Sun News Today Editorial Board at editor@nativesunnews.today)