Memorial this morning, and we will turn to the business of building the memorial next week. So we are glad that you are here, we are excited to be talking about the memorial and lets get right to it. With me is harvey pratt, harvey is a citizen of the shine rapid traps of oklahoma, he is a chief, he has been a career Law Enforcement official, he is a working artist, law and he is a marine and vietnam veteran so please greet harvey pratte. Thank you. So harvey, what caused used to submit a proposal of the proposed design for the memorial . While our veterans director just kept after me. Then i had no hope that i would even come close or submit a design and he kept saying to it for the tribe, submit something and i thought about it and he said let me dream on it. My i think some of my best creativity is done early in the morning during that dream period and so thats what i did, i went home and i dreamed about it and i got up and got my big chief out and made some sketches and it just came to me just all of a sudden that morning that in order to touch the 576 federally recognized tribes, how difficult that was if you would try to tie them altogether and i thought the way to do that is spiritually and i said that native people we are the same and we are different. We have the same concept but we do them a little different and thats when i thought that being a cheyenne chief im involved in a lot of ceremonies and ceremonies were important and that is the way to approach it i thought, it 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 like if you went into a chief lodge or a bone lodge or a sweat lodge, that was my concept when i saw things being around for ever and i thought of the circle, and i thought of the circle and in just a short time i had the idea and i thought that is what i am supposed to do, im supposed to do something about spirituality and ceremony, rather than a statue. But you have done other public art projects before had a new . Yes, yes im in a process of working on the sand creek massacre at the Capitol Grounds in denver, colorado, and ive been an artist for a long time. I was born by a differently before i was hardly pratte which means i would be a chief, they gave me that name and i was born in a small house near reno and in the hospital and my mothers and sault took care of her and i was a cloak bearer and when i saw that they said oh look at him, he wants to be a chief, so they gave me that name. And i felt like that was Something Special for me, and i always admired my School Teachers, School Teachers to me my First Grade School teacher never forgot her name, was mrs. Jones, and then mrs. Why it, another School Teacher wow and they always said harvey, you have some skill and ive often thought about that, i thought everyone could draw as a child, i thought everybody could do something and then it dawned on me that adults have to tell children that they are special or have a special talent. Oh using pretty or dance pretty or whatever it is, adults have to tell children that so they recognize that. To me that always impacted me in that i would tell my children those things, if they had a skill or a talent i would try to reinforce that to them, and with other children that i would meet, so the arch, i went to the Indian School st. Patricks indian mission, and i was drawing one day. Thats in oklahoma for those of you yes, in oklahoma. And the priest came by and he saw what i was doing and he said well harvey, you have talent. And he bought me pencil and paper and paint and i painted a picture, i painted a painting and i did it of the crucifixion, and made everybody indians. And i sold it. I sold it in 61, i saw that for 90 dollars in 1961, and then the light fall oneoff. I bet it dead laughs . The light bulb went off. laughs and i thought oh my gosh, i can do this. And from that point on, my are, i used to try to paint all kind of indian art and southwest indians would say that is all wrong, you know, or somebody else would say we dont do that, so i concentrated on planes indians, my tribes. So that brings us to my next question, you are a school age artist doing all right it sounds like, so how did you end up in the marines . Well i got out of school and i went to college and i didnt have a car, so i was hitchhiking everywhere i went hitchhiked every day to school in back, hitchhike to work, and i was just tired of being broke, really i was tired of being broke and i felt like it was a struggle, so i always admired my uncle, he was a marine in the Second World War and served on several campaigns, hiroshima and had been wounded and part of his foot was gone and some of his face was gone and he had shrapnel all in his body and he was our family hero, he was a sergeant and so 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 and i came in one day and shes sitting across the table from me and i said mom, im going to tell you something i side, 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 that she was thinking of her brother, that had been wounded numerous times, missing in action, and i think, she relived that for me for her brother. Yeah. So i, i got hurt in boot camp, they pinched a nerve in my arm from the slaying and i was paralyzed, paralyzed in my lifetime, i was devastated because i am lefthanded, and i am an artist, and i thought all never saw another 90 dollar painting, you know . So they sent me back to the base, they put me in a dogcatchers truck, a wire cage in the back, put my see bag in there and im sitting on it and its raining, 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 pulled my orders are and they said, harvey prat will be a good marine. Saved me, saved me, that, you know, telling me that, because they called you a lot of other things but they didnt call you a marine, but he called me marine and i said you know what, i am going to make it. From that point on, unless i repealed, when i went to the rifle range i qualified the first time with the am one, and i got hurt and then when i came back they gave me an m14, so i had to qualify with a m14, somehow i was one of the last guys to use and m1 and one of the first guys to use and m14, then they made me a military police officer, military for the division on okinawa, and while i was there a lieutenant came by and was looking for volunteers, and he didnt tell us what we were going to volunteer for and he said what you are like it and it will be exciting and so i volunteered. You are not supposed to volunteer but i did, i volunteered. And they sent me to a guerrilla Warfare School for two months and i trained with a recon unit, a third recon unit, and we still dont know where we were going i thought we were going to the philippines really, they sent us to South Vietnam in 1963 and that is where i served seven months, with the recon unit and we guard at the base and the assets and we picked up shot down pilots, helicopter pilots in spotter plane so we went in and 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 kind of things, to save people, to save your brothers, you know, that was one of the biggest things you could do was rescue one of your mates, one of your warriors that was wounded or in battle with the rest of them, and i always thought about those things and being the first, and those things were important to our culture, it was important to me, ill tell you a story that my mother had three daughters and four sons, and the three daughters are the oldest and they were complaining that they didnt get treated equally with the brothers, they said you treat my brother is better than you treat us, you give them everything, and my aunt said, those boys are going to die for you sunday, they will have to protect you, protect our campaign our village, and they are going to have to die for you if they have to, that is why we do that to our men because they will have to give up their lives to protect the rest of us, and that is why we treat them special. Law and my sisters realized that we didnt think about going to war protecting or dying for anybody, but that is what the old people said, they said keep your shoes right here by the bad you might have to get up and run. I didnt understand that, you know, why would i have to get up and run in the middle of the night . Its because they were attacked, i was raised by people that were born in the 18 seventies, you know, they had witnessed those kinds of things and they said keep your shoes right there, you may have to run in the middle of the night. Collier spirit in at night time, they would go out and she would call us, our indian names and i would say and laura im right here, and she said i know what youre little spirit is still out there, and im going to bring it in, so things like that, that it took me awhile to realize, how valuable those things were to us, you know, that my aunt laura would consider our spirits and souls rather than just our physical beings, to keep your shoes there, and you know it was just Little Things, carry iraq in your pocket so when youre out there you can put it in your mouth and make your own water. Just a lot of Little Things like that that made is who we were, you know. I think a lot of life histories and lessons made me a better person. And the spirituality of who we are, and you get up in the morning and you try to be the a better person today than you were yesterday, and thats the way i try to be, one of the law cheyenne chiefs would say you have to make the sacrifices, so that is the way i approach light, is to try to be a better person today than i was yesterday. So how do these things you learned from being a cheyenne and marine and for your work and creating this memorial. I think that i have always been somewhat creative, put the marine corps taught me to adapt and think about things and not just accept them and when something happens and you can change, to change it and i think that helped me throughout my career even in a Law Enforcement, when things 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 and the marine corps tommy that and some of the history that i picked up from my family that taught me to be a man, you know some of the expectations you have to live up to those things and they were important to me, my father, we were extremely poor and i never owned toys, we had clay and we made our choices, we made horses and people had cars and animals, thats what we played with something that we made. I think that all we hope to, help me to be creative about what i did and how i entertained myself, so turning back to the ceremonial elements of the memorial, could you describe those for everyone and how you think about it and how do you wish for people to experience from it. Yes you know the ceremonial and we have a pathway that comes off the welcoming center and it goes off the north side of the wetlands and it curves around and we thought of that pathway as it goes to the memorial, that pathway is what some people call a road rotary club the path of life, its preparation for veterans, men and women, mothers, uncles, relatives that if you want to honor somebody or if you want to pray for somebody you prepare yourself as you walk this path and so that is what i want this path to because, to be prepared as you come to the path of the memorial, the memorial is 50 feet across and its 14 feet high and its a horizontal circle, i thought circle was important because morals called the circle war of on our, cnn outer circle as you walk the path of life and you prepare yourself to go and to pray for your veteran or prefer someone you love for your family for someone that has passed on and you want to go there and pray so you make preparations and the circle has an outer circle that you walk and you can walk in counterclockwise or clockwise whatever your tribe does so you have the opportunity to be who you are as a different person and it has entryways that are northsouth east and west direction so that you can enter from any direction that you choose and receive the power that you can youre power come from whichever direction and once you come into 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, the fire, the wind and the earth, youre in harmony with those, things those elements those are all elements of native people use, the use Security Fire and sacred water, i plus myself every morning with water, and not only indians use water a lot of people use water to purify themselves, so the water is there and in the inner circle we call it the drop, its, it really is symbolic 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 and in the middle is a 12 foot stainless deal circle, at the base of that is a fire and so you can use that fire lighter 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 and it goes down the sides and then the design and in the granite is rhythmic my goes out across the memorial and off the ground said it goes down the mall and it goes all a way to virginia and western parts and it calls the indian people to come to these sacred place were gonna make it sacred, we will make it sacred by your prayers when you come in there law and youre gonna pray for your loved ones, your ancestors them, and the circle is timelines, when i say its timeless is that we can think about our ancestors, we can ask them to pray for, us we could lead about our young men and women that are there right now for the president , then its for the future, its for our grandchildren and their grandchildren that this memorial is timeless, its not dated, its going to be the same as it is now as it is hundreds of thousands of years ago and in the future, it will be the, same and mean the same thing, and directives cardinal points, bum we use the sacred collar a man so i say every morning when you get up and you look at the sign and you say im gonna be a better person than i am today that i was the other day, law so storms and things come out and the creator shows you his power now and we remember him as our father, of god, and the northwest is the color yellow and that mother earth and she gives us everythings, she gives us water, air, water, plants, gives us dominion over those things, we have to protect those things, that is what we pray about, northwest is the color black and that is our ancestors, we always invite our ancestors before and since we feed them and we give them food and tobacco and we come and watch to make sure we are doing them the way we showed, where we are supposed to be doing them, we try to maintain the sacredness of them and god gave people written languages and he gave indian ceremonies and that is what we try to protect, our ceremonies, so to me they are extremely important, we consider all those things and they have eagle feathers on them and the battle and this is part of the sacred colors, so you see the sacred colors and we have prayer cloths that you can tie prayer cloths onto the lances and wherever you want to pray, so you say a prayer to one of your loved ones who is overseas and for a loved one that is getting ready to go and has come back and you make a prayer for him and the wind blows and that pair goes out for that person, i love that, i have prayer cloths all over my property with my wife, we tie prayer cloths and you turn something up and say a prayer for, it when someone says preformulate is what i do, so prayer cloths and i try to touch all of those things spiritually, spiritually about indian people because i think that we are very spiritual people and i think about this land, a lot of people asked me a lot of times, why do you indians fight for this country when they treated you so poorly, theres a lot of reasons, you fight for the man to the left into the right for you and you fight for your country and the for human being stepdaughter this continent it was just animals, it was a garden of eaton and who did god give it to . He gave it to the indians, he gave this land to the indian so i say look, we are fighting for this land, it is our, land it is always been our land and god gave it to us, the creator gave it to a snowy fight for this land, its in our native blood, its soaked into this earth, the earth is precious to us and now we become universal and i say that our blood is soaked all over this continent and world, native blood is everywhere and so i said it is precious to us, that is why we try to respect it and do the right they and care for it, so one of the things we think about a lot more thinking about after the memorial opens me, its sort of protocol around how people use the memorial and we know that native people will know what a prayer tie is and they know the proper way to make an offering force agent sweet grass, but them how do you think we out to advise our non native guests to experience the memorial . I think from that, i think that most people are very aware of religions, the freedom to have a religion the way you want, you see that in our culture, we have all kinds of different religions, i think that people will see these people making these ceremonies, doing ceremonies and youre going to see, they may wonder, i have thought about that and i said that maybe we could have a dose of that and they dont have to tell you anything by adjusts that his blessedness, his blessing his sob or his daughter that is going into service and hes asking to create and protect, you dont have to tell him exactly why, the medicine that you have, ive owe is carried medicine, my whole life, ive had medicine to help and protect me people are respectful and i think that is what we want to have at this memorial is respect, from the different cultures, i was reading some statistics and it said that 40 of the American Population believe that indians were a dying race that no longer existed, 40 of the people think that indian people cease to exist when we turned into the 20th century, that shocked me but i also hear that a lot of people say they respect the indian people, i think that is what will happen, if people see as doing something they will be respectful and ive had people say that can you smoke th