I'm so screwed...
Posted on 02/03/2005 9:36:15 AM PST by freespirited
The Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians said Wednesday that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill is an associate member of the tribe but not a full member, which requires a person to have at least one-fourth Cherokee blood.
"He was trying to get recognized as an Indian. He could not prove he was an Indian (Cherokee) at all," said Ernestine Berry, who was on the tribe's enrollment committee and served on the tribal council for four years.
Churchill, who resigned as chairman of CU's ethnic studies department on Monday, has been condemned for comparing victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks to Nazis.
He has described himself as an Indian and has said that shaped many of his opinions. But over the last week, as Churchill's comments made news, his critics have claimed he is a fraud.
On Wednesday, Churchill steadfastly maintained that he is an Indian, claiming he is three-sixteenths Cherokee. But he acknowledged that he is an associate member, not a full member, of the Keetoowah.
"I don't vote, I don't hold office, I don't collect benefits," Churchill said. He said he was enrolled as an associate member of the Keetoowah after a genealogical investigation showed his Cherokee lineage.
He said he could have become a full member of the larger, 240,000-member Cherokee Nation because it has no "blood quantum threshold." But he chose the Keetoowah because they are a more "hard- line" group.
Berry, of the Keetoowah Band, said Churchill was given an associate membership in the 10,000-member tribe, based in Tahlequah, Okla., in the early 1990s.
"Mr. Churchill started coming around in 1992 or 1993, said he wrote some books and was a big-time author, and convinced us he could help our people," Berry said.
On that basis, he was given an associate membership, said Berry, who was on the tribe's enrollment committee and has served on the tribal council.
Berry said Churchill never fulfilled his promise to help the tribe, which she said is an extremely poor offshoot of the Cherokee Nation.
"After he received his associate card, we never heard from him again," Berry said.
The tribe no longer offers associate memberships, although it didn't revoke any existing memberships, Berry said.
In addition to questioning Churchill's Indian heritage, some people have raised questions about his duties in Vietnam, where he said he fought in that country's highlands and then moved to coastal regions, where he was assigned to "gun trucks" similar to today's Humvees.
One of the skeptics is Vernon Bellecourt, director of the Council on Foreign Relations for the American Indian Movement.
Bellecourt says he believes Churchill worked counter-intelligence in Vietnam while also claiming to be an "information specialist" there.
"According to research by one of our people, he has had two military records. There is something very strange which we have not been able to get into," Bellecourt said.
In 1995, News From Indian Country, an Indian-owned, reservation-based Wisconsin newspaper for Native Americans, said it had "observed many interesting things about (Churchill) including contrary military records. ... "
Churchill's service record was not available from the Pentagon. But one private group that tracks Vietnam veterans has obtained some data.
Mary Schantag, a researcher for the POW Network, said Department of Defense records that she has show Churchill was a "heavy-vehicle driver."
But she acknowledged that those records indicate only his last assignment.
The POW Network is dedicated to compiling the biographies of prisoners of war and those missing in action from the Vietnam conflict. In recent years, it has also exposed people making phony claims about Vietnam service.
I am personally more interested in the truth about his military record. In his statement the other day, he said he was a soldier who had participated in and seen more violence than he ever wanted to see.
I would be shocked, SHOCKED to find he is a complete and utter liar.
Poor Ward. Nobody wants him. I doubt he could even get al-Qaeda to take him in. I wonder if CU can fire him now, for lying on his application about his ethnicity, to take advantage of affirmative action in hiring.
Typical lib, got what he wanted and then said screw you to the little people. America wake up! These people want nothing more than to control you!
Whadda wack job. Reminds me of Chief Moose's white wife, who's constantly proclaiming that she's a black. If he compared the victims of 9/11/01 to Nazis, I imagine he can get a job at just about any American university these days
It is as though this man just wanted to commit moral, intellectual, and social suicide as surely and quickly as possible.
It was accomplished.
Perhaps they might tie Churchill to two horses ( left arm, left leg to one and right arm, right leg to the other ), then whip the horses.
If they don't rip him apart give him full membership, otherwise bury him with the associate membership card.
Indian?
he's about as Indian as my cat! LMAO
now a despicable POS...now that he is!
Ward, I'm worried about the Beeber.
It sounds as though he's been cruising along under the radar, with claims that nobody ever verified because there wasn't any interest in doing so (I mean, after all, you just have to LOOK at him to see he's a nutjob.)
If the pajamahadeen take this and run with it, both Indian and military fakery will be shown in the cold clear light of day.
He served less than two years active duty, by his own resume, posted on FR last evening.
He may have been the only Native American, Airborne Ranger, Information Specialist, Battalion Newsletter Reporter, CIA optech, DIA merc, Truck Driver in the AO.
I think we found the spec-op that gave John Kerry 'The Hat'.
I relished reading this article in the paper first thing this morning. My guess is he will be proved to be a complete and utter fraud in many ways. So far, he's an "Indian-wanna-be", and perhaps he either did not serve in Nam, or has embellished his experiences ala sKerry. I am hoping that the citizens of Colorado will no longer be required to fund this crackpot's $95,000 yearly paycheck....one way or another. He has a right to free speech, but not a right to pick my pocket for a forum in which to express it.
The Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians constitute what is the priest-shaman-medicine men of the Cherokee Tribe, and the business of at least 25% blood quantum to be a tribal member is entirely correct. By Cherokee tribal law, the Keetoowah band is not granted any land base within Cherokee lands, because of their special relationship to the traditions of the tribe.
Nothing, of course, prevents an individual band member from owning land, but the band has no land base within or apart from the Cherokee tribe as a whole.
I'm so screwed...
One can assume the other 13/16ths are pine.
You probably know about the 'fire' that destroyed countless records.
An amazing number of DD 214s are incomplete, simply because the short timer only wanted out, and could not care less if there were orders, awards, or decorations missing from his 201 file, as long as his ETS date and pay voucher were good.
Someone posted on a prior thread they would check the RTB class rosters for that time frame today.
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