Posted on 11/11/2005 5:14:13 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper
LAME DEER - Ray Brady throws his arms wide and grins when he talks about coming home from World War II. "I never got hit. I never got wounded," Brady said. "I came back just like this - a healthy Indian."
Brady was a 17-year-old kid from Muddy Creek when he volunteered for the Army. Riding transport trucks into battle, facing huge German tanks and jumping out of airplanes made lasting impressions on the boy who used to ride a horse into Lame Deer.
Brady, 80, walks with a cedar cane and sometimes says he is tired and a little "goofy" from age. But his eyes glitter and his back straightens when he talks about the experiences he had in World War II.
"I've been all through Europe," Brady says with pride and rattles off the countries through which he traveled. Some of the city names are gone from his memory, Brady admits, but they were big - both in the United States and in Europe. Overseas, the destruction he saw was immense.
War was hard, Brady said, but he is proud to have served his country and to be a warrior from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. He remembers carrying all the ammunition he could, so he would be able to protect himself. You take risks and lives at war, he said.
"I knew I would get killed or I would make it home," Brady said. "When I made it, I was happy."
He recalls serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and talks of working with the infantry in the Battle of the Bulge, where "they took everybody for that violent action."
"They took us in big transport trucks," Brady said. "As soon as we hit, the first bullet hit near the truck, and we jumped off and attacked. We were on foot then."
Between training and missions, Brady went through France, England, Belgium and Germany. His specialty was chemical warfare, but he also learned to jump from planes.
Sitting in the Shoulderblade Elderly Complex where he lives, Brady remembers as if it were yesterday riding into Germany on 7th Armored Division tanks and meeting German troops in their own tanks.
"The biggest tanks I ever saw in my life," he said. "We had little tanks against those tanks."
Brady looks a little stunned when he talks about entering Berlin: "We got into Berlin, and that was flattened - it was bombed to heck."
While in Berlin, Brady's assignment included disarming people and "searching for Nazis," he said, adding, "we actually were policemen."
It was in Berlin that Brady started to know some Russian troops. He flashes a wide grin when recalling their attempts at conversation.
"Of course, they didn't talk English, and we didn't speak Russian," he said. "We were friendly because we were allies."
The Russians provided Brady with a startling revelation, he said.
"The first time I saw a woman in the Army actually fight as a man was a Russian woman," he said. "They carry rifles just like men. It's a great thing to see a Russian woman fight like a man, and I thought, 'You'll never whoop this nation, Russians, because women help fight.' "
After all the experiences of war, getting home was easy, Brady said, even if it did entail riding ships crisscrossing the Mediterranean and a long ride on a troop train across the United States with stops in Chicago and Minnesota.
"Midnight, it's a helluva time to get a discharge because it's pretty cold," Brady said.
Brady recalls getting off the train in Billings and being on Montana Avenue looking for a ride home.
"Along comes a car," he said, that happened to be driven by a man from Lame Deer. The man stopped and asked if he was Ray.
"I said, 'Yeah, I just got in,' and he asked 'From where?' " Brady said, a smile starting to bloom. "Germany."
Brady said coming home was a relief.
"I was glad to see my relatives, and they were happy I was alive," he said. "It was good to see people that were in peace."
Serving in the military and going to war changed Brady. And not for the better, he said.
"We were not perfect. Some of us were crazy," he said. "I came home as a drunkard. That's the worst thing I ever went through in my life."
Brady worked doing maintenance for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and as a cowboy. He admits to falling off the wagon over the years.
"I was kind of crazy," Brady said. "Once in a while, I'd get crazy again and mess up.
"I spent a lot of time trying to whip this drinking habit I had," he said. "I finally made it. It's hard to go through."
"I'm too old to join the Army again, I'm happy for that," he said. "The actual combat, when you're fighting a war, it's something. You gotta beat the man to stay alive."
Brady's proud of the soldiers serving today. His Army medals are among his prized possessions, Brady calls them "something to remember by."
He likes to visit with other veterans and appreciates the veterans' benefits he receives.
"I take it as a gift for what I went through," he said. "They treated me right."
Ray's quite a guy... Yep...
I am part Creek and have a few problems with that waggon myself. Must be the genes.
Once a month we read meters on the Cheyenne reservation.
In my time there, got to talk to Russell Means brother in Lame Deer. Also had a chat with Austin Two Moons(grandson of chief Two Moons of Little Big Horn fame.)who lived just east of Bixby.
A lot of history is in that area and some profound wisdom also.
Pretty good people there too. My grandparents ran a grocery store in Broadus, Montana (east of Ashland), and they made a number of friends from the Ashland area.
I do remember that. I also recall it was the first homicide in Ashland's history.
I'm 1/16 Creek. Stuff will kill ya'.
That is about what I am. My great, great grandmother was from North Carolina.
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