So, we are glad that you are here. We are excited to be talking about the memorial. Lets get right to it. With me is harvey pratt. Harvey is a citizen of the cheyennearapaho tribes of oklahoma. He is a cheyenne peace chief. He has been a career Law Enforcement official. He is a working artist. And he is a marine and vietnam veteran. Please greet harvey pratt. [applause] so, harvey, what caused you to submit a proposed design for the memorial . Mr. Pratt well, our veterans director just kept after me. I have no, really had no hope i would even come close or submit a design, but he just kept after me. He said, do it for the tribe, harvey. Come on, submit something. I thought about it. I said, let me dream on it. I have to dream. Some of my best creativity is done early in the morning during that dream period. So thats what i did. I went home and dreamed about it. I got up and got my big tablet out and i made some sketches. It just came to me all of a sudden that morning and in order to touch the 576 recognized tribes, how difficult that was become, try try to to tie them all together. I thought, the way to do that is spiritually. Said, native people are the same, but were different. We have the same concept, but we do them a little different. That is what i thought about. Being a cheyenne chief, i am involved in a lot of ceremonies and ceremonies, to me, were important, and i thought, that is the way to approach this. Is spiritually, through ceremonies rather than through a piece of art. I wanted to do something that you could walk into, that you could walk into and be involved in it. Like if you went to a chiefs lodgeor a kiva or a sweat. ,hat was my concept when i saw things about it being round and forever and i thought of the circle. I thought of the circle and it just all, in just a short time, i had the idea. I thought, thats what im supposed to do. Im supposed to do something about spirituality and ceremony rather than a statue. You had done public art projects before. Yes, im in the project in the process of working on a piece on the sand creek massacre on the Capitol Grounds in denver. I have been an artist for a long time. I was born [speaking native language] before i was harvey pratt. That was, that means i was going to be a chief. I was a veil baby, or close cloak bearer. And they said, oh, look at him. He wants to be a chief. So they gave me the name. I felt like that was something , and i that, for me always admired my school teachers. School teachers, to me, my First Grade School teacher, never forgot her name, mrs. Jones and mrs. Wyatt, another schoolteacher, and they always said, harvey, you have some skill. I often thought about that. I thought everybody could draw as a child. I thought everybody could do something. Tell children that they have a special talent. You sing pretty or you dance pretty or whatever it is. Adults have the child have to tell children that so they recognize that. That impacted me enough that i would tell my children those things if they had a skill or talent, i would try to reinforce that to them and with other children i would meet. So, the arts, i went to Indian School at Saint Patricks indian mission. I was drawing one day, and that is in oklahoma. The priest came by and he saw what i was doing and he said, harvey, you have got talent. He bought me pencils and paint and paper and i painted a picture. I painted a painting and i did it of the crucifixion and i made everybody indians. And i sold it. I sold it. In 1961, i sold it for 90 in 1961. And the lightbulb went off. The lightbulb went off. I thought, oh, my gosh. I could do this, you know . I could sell some art. From that point on, my art, i used to try to paint all kinds of indian art and southwest indians would say, thats all wrong. And somebody else would say, we dont do that. So i concentrated on planes indians, myplains tribes. Kevin that brings this to mind for me. You were a schoolage artist, doing all right, it sounds like. How did you end up a marine . Mr. Pratt well, i got out of school and i went to college. I did not have a car so i was hitchhiking everywhere i went. Hitchhiked to school and back, hitchhiked to work. I was tired of being broke. I felt like it was a struggle. So i have always admired my uncle, who was a marine in the Second World War and served on several campaigns in a will jima jima. He had been wounded. Sergeant and he was our family hero. He was a marine. And i thought, im going to join the marine corps. I never told my mother. I just went out and did it. I came in one day and she was sitting across the table from me. And i said, mom, ive got to tell you something. I joined the marine corps yesterday. And she looked at me and her mouth flew open, and i called it the silent scream. And i never expected that reaction from her, until i got a little older and i thought about it. She was thinking of her brother that had been wounded numerous times, missing in action. She relived that for me, for her brother. So i got hurt in boot camp. They pinched a nerve in my arm from the sling and i was paralyzed, paralyzed my left arm. I was devastated because im lefthanded and im an artist. You know, and i thought, i wills i will never sell another 90 painting. So, they sent me back to the base. They put me in a dog catchers truck, a wire cage in the back, put my c bag in there, and its raining. Im sitting on my c bag and i am soaking wet and cars are passing me and i was so depressed. And i had my orders. I opened up that bag and i pull the orders out and it said, my drill instructor said harvey pratt will be a good marine. Saved me. Save me. , because they didnt call you good, they called you a lot of other things, but they didnt call you a marine. When he called me a marine right then, i said, you know what . Im going to make it. Im going to make it. From that point on, once i healed, when i went to the rifle range, i qualified the first time with an m1 and i got hurt. Men i came back, they gave an m 14 and i had to qualify with that. I was one of the last guys to and the first guys to use an m 14. They made me a military police officer, military police on okinawa. The lieutenant came by. He was looking for volunteers. He did not tell us what we were going to volunteer for. He said, you will like it. It will be exciting. I volunteered. You are not supposed to volunteer but i did. And they sent me to guerrilla Warfare School for two months and i trained with a recon unit, third recon unit, and we still did not know where we were going. I thought we would go to the philippines, really. Vietnam ins to south 1963. That is where i served seven months there with the recon unit. We guarded the base. And the assets. We picked up shot down pilots, helicopter pilots, when they got shot down, we would go get them and bring them home. So to me, that meant a great deal. To indian culture, to do those kinds of things, you know, to save people and save your brothers, that was one of the gest as you good do biggest things you could do is to rescue one of your mates who was wounded in battle. I always thought about those things, those things were important to our culture, important to me. I will tell you a story that my mother, she had three daughters and 4 sons, and the three daughters were the oldest. That theycomplaining did not get treated equally with the brothers. They said, you treat my brothers better than you treat us. You give them everything. And my and my aunt said, those boys are going to die for you someday. They will have to protect you, protect our camp, protect our village. They are going to have to die for you if they have to. She said, that is why we do that to our men, because they will have to give up their lives. That is why we treat them special. My sisters realized that then. We did not think about going to war or dying for anybody, but that is what the old people said. They said keep your shoes by the bed. You might have to get up and run. I did not understand that. You know . Why would i have to get up and run in the middle of the night . Because they were attacked. I was raised by people that were born in the 1870s, you know . They had to witness those kinds of things. They would say, keep your shoes right there. You may have to run in the middle of the night. Color your spirit in at nighttime. My aunt would call us out by our indian names. I would say i am right here. She would say, i know but your little spirit is still out there running around. Bring it in because i do not want something to get it at night. It took me a while to realize how valuable those things were to us, that my aunt laura would consider our little spirits, our souls, rather than just your physical being and to keep your shoes there. It was Little Things, carry a rock in your pocket so you can put it in your mouth and make your own water. Little things like that that made us who we work. Who we were. A lot of lifes histories made me a better person. And the spirituality of who we up in the morning and you try to be a better person today than you were yesterday. That is the way i try to be. As one of the cheyenne chiefs, they would say, you have to make the sacrifices, you know . So that is how i approach life. I try to be a better person today than i was yesterday. Kevin so how do these things you learned from being a cheyenne, being a marine, inform your work on the memorial . Mr. Pratt i have always been somewhat creative, but the marine corps taught me to adapt and overcome and think about things and not just accept them. When something happens, if you can change it, change it. That has helped me throughout my career, even in Law Enforcement that when issues came up, i didnt just accept them. I thought about them and if i could make it better, i would try to make it better. I think the marine corps taught me that and some of the history i picked up from my family that taught me to be a man, the expectations that we expect of you, you have to live up to those things. They were important to me. Wendfather, we work were extremely poor. I never owned toys. We had clay. We made our toys. We made horses and people and cars and animals and that is what we played with. Something we made. I think that always helped me, helped me to be creative. Creative about how i entertained myself and what i did. Kevin turning back to the ceremonial elements of the memorial, can you describe those to everyone . Sort of how you think about it and how you wish people to experience the memorial . Mr. Pratt yes, i have a , the memorial itself, comes offpathway that the welcoming center and goes along the north side of the wetlands and it curves around and it, i thought of that pathway as it goes to the memorial. That pathway is what some people call the red road and we call it the path of life. It is preparation for veterans, men and women, uncles, mothers, relatives. If you want to honor somebody or you want to pray for somebody, you prepare yourself as you walk this path. That is what i wanted this path, for you to become prepared as you come to the path and come to the memorial, and the memorial is 50 feet across and 14 feet high. It is a horizontal circle. I thought come a circles are important. The memorial is called a warriors circle of honor. You have an outer circle and as you walk your path of life and prepare yourself to go in to pray for your veteran or pray for somebody you love or your family or someone that has passed on and you want to go there and pray, you make preparation and the circle has an outer circle that you walk and you can walk in counterclockwise or clockwise, whichever your tribe does. You have the opportunity to be who you are. And it has entryways that are north, south, east and west, directions so you can enter from any direction that you choose and receive the power that you nk, whatever power your whatever direction your power comes from, you can come in from that direction. Once you come in that direction from those openings, you come into harmony where you have prepared yourself to pray for someone and you come within that inner circle, that is harmony, and you are in harmony with the elements, with the water, fire, wind and the earth. You are in harmony with those things, those elements and those are all elements that native people use. They use sacred fire and sacred water. I bless myself every morning with water and say my morning prayers. Not only indians use water. A lot of people use water to purify themselves. So the water is there. The inner circle, we call it the drum. Is a symbolic drum, but it has water that comes out of the center and flows across the top and down the sides, and that is the water that is there. So you come into their into there and in the middle is a 12 foot stainless steel circle and at the base of that is fire. So, you can use that fire to light your sweet grass and sage and things that you use and you can touch the water and use the fire. We call that the drum. And the water pulses out, goes down the sides, and the design in the granite is rhythmic. It goes out like that. It goes across the rails and goes off the grounds and goes the mall and across into virginia and into the western parts and it calls the indian people to come to this sacred place. We are going to make it sacred by your prayers when you come in there and you are going to sit down on this granite and you are going to pray for your loved ones, and you are going to pray for your ancestors. And it is timeless area the circle is timeless. When i say it is timeless, we can think about our ancestors, we can ask them to pray for us. We can think about all the men and women in the service now. Present. Then, it is for the future. It is for our grandchildren and it is for their grandchildren this memorial is timeless. It is not dated. It is going to be the same as it is now as it was hundreds and thousands of years ago and hundreds of thousands of years in the future. It will be the same thing. It will mean the same thing. Sacredness, direction, cardinal points. The use of sacred colors, the southeast is white and every morning when you get up, you can look at the sun coming up and say i am going to be a better person than i was yesterday. It is a new beginning. The southwest is read and that is creative, storms come out of the southwest and the creator shows you his power in that way. We are remembering him as our father, god. The northwest is the color yellow and that his mother earth, our grandmother earth. She gives us everything. She gives us air, the water, plants, animals, and gives us dominion over these things. We have to protect these things. That is what we pray about. Northwest is the color black, and that is our ancestors. We always invite our ancestors i in before ceremonies. We feed our ancestors. We give them food and tobacco and we ask them to come watch, to make sure we are doing the ceremonies the way we should. We dont change, we try to maintain the sacredness of those old ceremonies. God gave us, gave people written languages and he gave indians ceremonies. That is what we try to protect, is our ceremonies. Those things are extremely important. That we consider all those things, and the lances have eagle feathers on them and the battle ribbon that hangs down the side where the eagle feathers are attached are part the sacred colors. So you see the sacred colors and we have the prayer cloth. You can tie the prayer cloth onto the lances. When you say a prayer for a loved one who is overseas or in the military or has, is getting ready to go or has come back and you make a prayer and you tie the prayer cloth on in the wind fors, the prayer goes out that person. I love that. I have prayer cloths all over our property with my wife gina. We tied prayer cloths. When i think about it, i tear something and say a prayer on it. Someone says pray for me, harvey, pray for me. Thats what i do. So the prayer will go out. So, prayer cloths, and i try to touch all of those things spiritually, you know, spiritually about us, the indian people, because i think we are really spiritual people. And i think about this land, a lot of people ask me a lot of times, why do you indians fight for this country when they treated you so poorly . There are lots of reasons. You fight for the man to the left of you and to the right of you. You fight for your country, but before human beings sat on this north American Continent and, it was just animals. It was a garden of eden. Who did god give it to . He gave it to the indians. He gave this land to the indians. I would say, look, we fight with a slant. It is our land, it has always been our land. God gave it to us, the creator gave it to us so we fight for this land. Blood is all over this land, soaked into this earth and it is precious to us. Our blood is soaked all over this continent. Native blood is everywhere in this land. So it is precious to us. That is why we try to respect it and do the right thing and care for it. Kevin one of the things we think about, thinking about as thefter the memorial opens, sort of protocols around how people use the memorial. We know that native people will know what a prayer tie is and they will know the proper way to offer, make an offering of sager sweetgrass or cedar sage or sweetgrass or cedar. But how do you think we ought to guests to nonnative experience the memorial . Mr. Pratt you know, i think that most people are very aware of religions, the freedom to have a religion the way you want and you see that in our culture. We have all kinds of different religions. People will see thesepeople making ceremonies, doing ceremonies, and they will see it and they may wonder, and i have thought about that and i say maybe we could have a dose of, it doesnt , butto tell you everything just, he is blessing his relatives, he is blessing his son or his daughter that is going into the service and asking the creator to protect him. You dont have to tell them exactly why. I have always carried medicine my whole life. I have some right now in my wallet. Me, to protectlp me. If you think about those kinds , and people are respectful, and i think that is what we want to have at this memorial, is respect. We want to have respect from the different cultures and i was reading some statistics and it said that 40 of the American Population believe indians are a dying race, they no longer existed. 40 of the people think that indian people ceased to exist when we turned into the 20th century. That shocked me. That shocked me. But i also hear that a lot of people say they respect the indian people, and i think if people see us doing something, they will be respectful. Youve had people say, could smoke this off . I was in an investigation once, and some of the investigators saw me and i was Walking Around with cedar. Of everyme off direction, north, south, east and i wentnd i pray, to the fire and these investigators kept saying, harvey, what are you doing . You are doing something. We see you doing something. Toaid, well, im just going smoke myself off. I need to approach this with a good heart and do the right thing. So im going to cleanse myself. They said, could we, could you do that for us . And i was kind of surprised that these men, who didnt really know, but they wanted that same thing. I think about that a lot, that you they see used doing Something Special and they want some of that. When you pray, when you get something, i have learned that, i see it a lot when you do ceremonies and people say, will you smoke off my brother over here he echoes he wants some of that. He sees how it makes you feel, how it makes people feel about a ceremony. I would love to have people watch and be respectful. And maybe, if they said could you do that for me . I think that is what is really important, that you do those things for people regardless of who they are. Is there anything people should not do in the memorial . Mr. Pratt when we do ceremonies that, you cant carry, we wont let you carry water at sutton at the sun dance and you cant run and shout and be disrespectful. Like even at the tomb of the unknown soldier. They will chastise you if you get loud, be disrespectful. I think that would be, to me, would be disrespectful to us if someone went in there and was doing something that was disrespectful. I would hate to see that. Kevin so would i. Mr. Pratt i would hate to see it. Kevin but i think thats as good as a characterization you can make. Just show respect at all times on this ground. For the audience, when we were out talking with veterans across the country about what the memorial should be about, what it would be like, i was a bit surprised because we first thought we would put it out here on our independence side, where we have some open space. And it would be very visible. All these people driving by, all these people walking by would see and hopefully wonder and come to see what that was. To my surprise, very consistently, the veterans were telling us, no, you know, its too noisy out there, too many cars, too many people. Put it on the other side where there can be some privacy. And for the purposes that you are describing, they will use it as a ceremonial space. Mr. Pratt yes. Kevin so harveys design really grasped that in a way that much of the designs did not. The proposed designs. You know, when we were working conduct a Design Competition and we were working on saying, these are the criteria, the things we want the memorial, the design to achieve. It occurred to us even then that native people are going to understand these differently. The native artists and designers who submit will understand these differently than the nonnative. Nevertheless, when we were evaluating the proposals, we had 120 from all over the world, from most of the states in the united states. We were still, and we did not know who would submitted any who had submitted any given design. The identity of each proposed designer was unknown to the jury. So we were very, because for we were very concerned. Because for example the Martin Luther king memorial was designed by a chinese designer. And we thought that would not be very good for the native american memorial, to be designed by not only someone not from the united states, but someone who just had not had at experience. On the other hand, we had some degree of confidence that native designers were going to understand it in the way that we wanted it to be understood and i think your design was really exactly the sort of thing that we anticipated. As a native designer, you would see it, you would understand. And of course your experience as a marine would further inform that. It was what we were looking for. Mr. Pratt somewhere during that whole period, that came to me. I thought, i understand. I know what im talking about because ive been involved in ceremonies and things. I think i understand the way native people are. Even though we are different. I understood those things about it. That is what i tried to incorporate into my design. Those elements that we would all understand. We may not all do them, but we all understand them. For example, the warriors 12 foot circle, the steel circle. I call it the hole in the sky. Where the creator lives. He lives up there, that hole in the sky. When you make a prayer or offering or sacrifice, it goes up there. And the creator hears it and he sends it back. And he sends back a blessing to you. That is the way i interpret that, when i think of that, that the air in the sky, and the creator. You ask him, you beg him for something. Pitiful. And hell have mercy on you, he will give you a blessing that comes back to you through that hole in the sky. So to me theres a lot of little symbolic things that i learned throughout my life that that i tried to incorporate and think about. If i think about it, theyre gonna think about it. They are going to see that same thing. Theyre gonna make a recognition. Thats what i hope for. That you would recognize the directions, the cardinal points, and the elements, and the colors, and the pathway. Just all the Little Things that would mean something to native people. I was not worried about trying to educate nonnatives. That will come. That will come with this memorial. We will educate nonnative people about who we are and why we do certain things. That we are a spiritual people. That we are concerned about this earth and how we live. We try to live a good way. And that is all. You recognize that when you get there and hopefully people will see a good example and follow it. Kevin yeah. So one of the challenges as youve already described is that even though weve had some commonalities, native people are very different one from another. There are 570 some federally recognized indian tribes. Several hundred more than are recognized by different state governments. Mr. Pratt right. Kevin and a number that say they are tribes but are not recognized by either. Mean,mpting was it to, i one of the things you might do is try to find iconography or from a varietyes of different cultures and try to put them all together in one thing. Were you tempted . Mr. Pratt you know, i thought about that. What cured me was when i tried to paint other tribal ceremonies , i screwed it up. I was doing it wrong and they would say, we dont do that. So that to me, that came to me and i said, i cant. I cant try to do something that a southwest tribe did or the great lakes, someone who did something different. I cant add those things, those cultural things, because i will do them wrong. Thats how i thought of the spirituality and the elements. We all use those things. I initially thought about doing the sculpture because i do sculpt. I thought, i will do a sculpture, and then i thought, well, if i do that, that does not represent those people. That doesnt represent those people. Thats why i chose to have a destination. A place that people can go to. It has a purpose. It is not a shortcut. Its not a pathway. You have to go there in mind to honor veterans. You have to go there to do that. Then you go in and come out. Its not a path that people can walk through and go to somewhere else. You have to go to our memorial specifically. Its not a shortcut. Its where you go to make a commitment as a veteran or a war mother or somebody, grandson. Sister, brother. You go there specifically in mind to pray for somebody, to ask the creator to help you to help them. That itough of that becomes a place of strength and power and reverence, sacredness. Goes in there,e they will feel all of those prayers. They will feel all of those things. Thats what i want. I want people to say, this is the best place. Gina and i have a place on our property that we found, and its a place that we go to. Its a place that i go smoke my pipe. And type prayer cloths high tie prayer cloths. It is a special place. Theres a lot of those in this earth. Thats what i want this to be, a special place that people can go to and be energized. You know . To be free of any guilt they have. To feel better about themselves. To feel if they go there to pray for someone, it means something. Because you are going to have all these other prayers that have already been in there and it is going to have strength and power and healing. Thats what i wish for. That is what i wish for, that it will help us, and i wish it to help our veterans. Kevin let me ask you this. This will turn a different direction. What do you think the challenges are that native American Veterans are facing today . Mr. Pratt i became involved with a Veterans Organization and i go to the va hospital, and i see veterans, and i see a lot of things. I see people that are homeless, people that are angry. Im talking about all kinds of people that are veterans. Not just indians. I think that indian veterans have been kind of forgotten. Not forgotten by their people, by their tribes and families, but forgot by this country, by the government. When they make it hard to come up because i know i have tried to get v. A. Benefits and things like that, and they make it difficult for you. Say, ok, im not going. But i came back from vietnam, my hearing was damaged. And i went to the medical doctors and i said i cannot hear very well. And he said you are nothing but a malingerer. I said ok. I dont want to be that. I turned around and walked off and never said anything again. Even though i was damaged. I see that and if that happens to indian people, i say, im done. They dont fight as hard as some people do to get what they want. I will take care of myself. I think that is part of the problem, is that we have to train veterans. Say, hey, we are here to help. We are here to help you because ive been through it and i will help you to go down this path, so this is the way you do this to achieve benefits and get a little disability for your hearing, for your agent orange. Those things, and i will help you do it. Thats what we need to do. We need to help those guys that have given up. Thats why i got involved with our Veterans Organization. And the American Legion and belonged with indian veterans. One guy comes in and you know hes a veteran, but he just kind of hangs back to the side, and you go over and help them. I can help you do this. They did that to my brother. He never applied for nothing. He went into one of the meetings, kind of like what we have were the indians would come in and say we are veterans groups, and he was just walking by and they called him in and they said, we can help you do this. And he draws disability. He was homeless. Now he has a little place and draws disability. He has some pride about what he has done. But he just gave up. I think thats what happens to a lot of us indian people. We need people that are willing to step up and help them. Show them that there is a way. Kevin one of the things that i talk about a lot, sometimes even after all this time i struggle to find the words for, is about how native veterans are received in their home communities, and how their status and their prestige in their communities, and i dont see that, a similar sort of thing going on in nonindian communities. Mr. Pratt in whose experience . Kevin talking about how native American Veterans are treated within their own communities. And by their people. Mr. Pratt you know, when i was in vietnam, i fully expected to die over there. I was afraid my bones would be left there and they would not find my body. We were always way out. I dont want that. I want to come home. I want my bones and my body to come home. That was so important to me, that they didnt leave me over there somewhere. When i came home, my family had a big ceremony. They had some medicine men smoke me off and pray for me and do something for me. My family gave away and they fed everybody. To me, that, i felt so good about what my tribe and the indian people were doing for us. I had seen that my whole life, and i really experienced, i felt like i belonged. A long time ago, a lot of the tribes when their men went out before they could come back into camp, they made them stay out along the perimeter and they howled like wolves. They sent their medicine men out there to cleanse them because you have been fighting, doing things and we dont what you to come into the camp around the women and children acting that way, angry and volatile. We want to cleanse you and clean you up and make you a human being again before you come in here. I always think about that. Indian people were dealing with ptsd a long time ago. Ptsd along time ago. They knew it. They had seen people come in , medicineyou know doesnt work for everybody. It does not work for everybody. It is here and here. Some guys are angry about it. Those were the kind of people we want to try to help and take that away from them. I visited with a man, they were interviewing him and they said what did you do in vietnam . He said, i killed people. He is still carrying that around in his heart. I killed people. Something should have been done for him to help him. He had an carrying that around for 40 years. I killed people. That is terrible. We need people to help cure those kinds of men that had to do things like that, and help them get past that. Its a journey. Kevin it is. I read a book a couple years ago. I hope i do not mangle the authors name. I believe it was sebastian younger. He wrote a book called tribes and was talking about ptsd and why so many veterans struggle with ptsd. He concluded it was because in most places, for most veterans, they dont get that reception back. They are not greeted by their community. They are not helped to understand what has happened to them and cleansed, like you say, more of a spiritual cleansing. Mr. Pratt yes. Kevin in a way, as well, most veterans dont get to tell their story. Theres no safe place for them to talk about what theyve experienced, and i think that the tribes have always been like you say, they learned what ptsd was before and had practices that helped alleviate it and can show others how to do that. Speaking of that, im sure you would agree that not just native veterans are welcome in this memorial. Mr. Pratt i do agree with that. It is for everybody. If you want to come there, you need to come there and be healed and pray and participate. Yeah. It should be for everybody. It should be. If you want to learn and understand our ways, come. Come and participate. Be part of it. Kevin i think that, you know, in a lot of ways, even native veterans are closer to their fellow veterans than even some of their family or people in their tribe. That experience is so profound that that is a kinship that is unmatchable. Mr. Pratt i have a good friend that, we went through boot camp together and went to vietnam together and he was a pratte and he was a cajun pratt. We talked two or three times a week on the phone, text. I am as close to him as i am to anybody else. I am as close to him because we experienced that kind of thing together. He was a real technical guy. He would say that is a m60. He could tell you the sound of the weapon and the explosions and planes coming over. He was just that kind of a technical guy. We were on the same fire team. He was like that. And i just kind of flew by the seat of my pants. You know . I went this way. We really kind of matched because we were from opposite ends and we matched and made a good team. We made a really good team, he and i. We captured someone coming to the airfield. He and i captured him. A week later, we were standing there and we will go out on a special mission and we want volunteers. The volunteers are pratt and pratt. [laughter] mr. Pratt the volunteers are pratt and pratt. I looked at him. He was just elated. I was not so sure about it. Kevin that is what we always heard about you marines. All right. Well, harvey, thanks so much and thanks for being here this afternoon. Mr. Pratt my honor. Kevin for all the things you have done and all the ways that you have served. And thank you for your creation. We are honored to be able to work with you and bring it into being. Could not have been done without you. In so many ways, our memorial has a perfect design and a perfect designer. Mr. Pratt thank you. The team that came together, our design team, architects, your staff, it has just been phenomenal the way things have all come together. It has been a great experience for myself and my wife, gina, and my family, and the tribal people, and the people i have met at fundraisers, people are just excited about it and about raising money to come next year. Kevin yes. Mr. Pratt selling fry bread and all sorts of thing. Trying to raise money to come here. Kevin yes. We are looking forward to that. It will be a great day, veterans day 2020. We will be dedicating this memorial. We expect and are working to make sure that there will be thousands of native American Veterans here on the National Mall next veterans day. Thank you all for being here this afternoon. Thank you all who have watched online. Weve got some more work to do, but it is a labor of love no. We look forward to completing the project. Thanks again. Mr. Pratt thank you very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] monday, columbus day on American History tv, at noon, Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor discuss the impact of sandra day oconnor. If you read between the lines , what she would say is, if you want to improve the status of women in the north it nursing profession, the best way to do it is to get men want to do the job, because the pay inevitably will go up. Explore our nations passed on American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Monday night on the communicators, a former Senior Advisor to fcc chairman tom senior vice a president at u. S. Telecom, talk about the recent Court Decision on net neutrality. Court said was that the fccss decision to regulate Broadband Internet access as an information service, as a largely has been the last 20 years, was permissible. Fcc reclassified Broadband Internet access as information rather than telecommunications, and also said another part of the Communications Act does not provide authority for regulation, it washed its hands and abdicated its authority to oversee the broadband market. P. M. Eastern8 00 on cspan two. Next, on reel america, from 1948, operation vittles. This u. S. Air force short film nominated for an Academy Award tells the story of the berlin airlift. 1948. Thats when i was assigned to cover berlin again