Custer's Last Stand

Kind of an icky mornin' but things can always be worse so enough of that. I wanted to go to the range with Sterling, Jackie, and Keith but it just wasn't going to happen. I'm sure they are having a blast right now. ;)

Jackie and I had a pretty neat experience this week. The Military Channel (part of The Discovery Channel family) released a new show they just put together called Custer's Last Stand. Of course we watched it, since we went to Montana at the end of June. My profile pic is there. Our entire trip there was to GO to the Custer's Last Stand re-enactment at Little Bighorn Battlefield on Crow Agency, the reservation my family is from. It is only done one weekend a year and is a fantastically huge deal. We talked about it last year, and the tickets sell out about a year in advance so about last September we bought our tickets and have been counting down the months!

So anyway we watched the show to see how they did. Criminy, they did a knock-out of a job! Kudos! They even spoke with Crow tribal elder Joe Medicine Crow, whose grandfather actually fought at the Last Stand. I wish they had the Crow details but I understand the show's focus was to be on the American standpoint of the elite cavalry versus the Sioux and the incredible forensic investigation that is finally complete, not how the Crow helped, scouted, fought, and died alongside Custer and his men.

When we were there for the reenactment, we were commenting on filming, but we figured hey, it's only once a year so we just thought it was because it's such a huge deal. Now we know who the camera team was for! Very cool. We recognized many people while watching the television show. It was great. I'm so glad they got Joe Medicine Crow on there. At 94 he's living history. He did such a beautiful blessing over the American and Indian sides of the re-enactors to begin it. He sat within arm's reach of us after that and talked to him. I couldn't help but feel honored.

It really was the trip of a lifetime. The re-enactment, searching for bears, walking up to what ended up being badgers (thank God we didn't know until we got home that's what they were), mistaking black sheep for bear, confrontations with rabbits, sprawling in the grass just for the sake of it, Mt. Rushmore. Hmm...I feel another slideshow coming on. Ha!

Here are pictures from just before the re-enactment of Joe Medicine Crow singing the blessing, and then we all sang the National Anthem.