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Medicine Bags, p 122

http://idahoptv.org/productions/specials/homefront/wwii/axtell.cfm

Horace Axtell (Isluumce)

Horace Axtell (Isluumce) grew up in Ferdinand and went on to become the Spiritual Leader of the Nez Perce tribe after his service in World War II. He was one of the first ground troops on the scene after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jim: When were you in the service, from when to when?

Horace: From about the 28th, 21st or around there in February of 1943 until about February about five days after the first it'd be like the 23rd maybe in 1946 is when I got discharged.

it took us a long time to get from Honolulu to Japan, but on our way over they the guys with them big bombs dropped 'em in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but, but we went on there anyway. I think uh I can't remember what day it was we landed in, in uh Nagasaki, but I spent pretty close to nine months over there after, after that whole thing. So in a way I was glad and in another way what I seen over there in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, was pretty sad.

Horace: Oh yeah so there again I had to uh like a comparison uh I'd feel all of that, so when we first got set up in our area where we, after we moved from Nagasaki we moved to a place called Fukioka and there we was building a hospital so we had to set a new area or a new place to camp and so I come out of this mess hall after we had our dinner there and, and I, I looked up ahead and the garbage can where people dumped the food that they didn't eat and uh see some of the guys that were coming out of the mess hall already and they pushing these little kids away and uh so when I got up there I didn't, I seen what they were doing then, and they was trying to reach in to the mess kit so these guys that were throwing stuff away and stuff cramming it in their mouth so I held mine out there so the next time I come out of there after another meal I, I didn't eat all mine, it kind of spoiled my appetite to see that so I left more food on my mess gear so they could grab and it, just grab anything by hand and stuff it in their mouth and they was hungry and some of the kids were crying there and uh there was a lot of difference between hearing a baby or a boy, little boy or girl crying just plain crying, but when they're hungry that cry is hurt, it hurts you worse. So then after that I, I began to do a little more I'd take a dish out a little more and take out more to the one then they was waiting for me, they wouldn't even mess with these other guys they'd just run right over to me. So finally some of my friends seen that and they started doing the same thing and pretty soon we had a lot of kids there after we got, they'd tell each other, they'd give each other the signal and they was all there waiting and one good thing our, our company commander never said a word about it, he didn't stop us and we just kept on doing it.

Potlatch Mill down here in 1951 36 years, retired 1986

Memoir: Horace: Well uh I feel a lot of things about some of the mother's and fathers that lost children I the combat. I know how they hurt because I had this one good friend that was from Ferdinand and he was older, older than us and he was in a war before us and he got captured in uh Philippines made him do the death march and then he died in a prisoner of war over there and I seen how his father, he was an older man, he was Indian, Nez Perce Indian and I'd see him standing or sitting by himself like he was like in a, in a daze, he didn't show much emotion, but I could tell that it, it was hurt inside and I've seen other people like that from our tribe, I think our Indian people take things a little harder than other people because uh it always brings that memory back of our people being slaughtered. Like uh every year I go down to the Big Hole Battlefield and we have a ceremony that I uh I do, I lead uh, I take care of the pipe in our tribe, I, they call it a peace pipe, but we don't, we don't we call ours a different thing, it's a power that we go to have a ceremony there every year, same way at the Big Hole uh the uh the battlefield at the Bear Paw Battlefield and that's where my great grandpa's still over there. He got killed on the last battle over there and I got visit his place where they have his marker every year I get reminded of a lot of things that from that war and that takes me right back to these people that were their people that got killed there in the war uh and they was always so glad to see me come home you know my relatives that I was, came home safe and sound and but that, that's the one memory that I, I remember that this man was walking around like it he was in a daze and he was kind of like that until he died. Because it was his youngest son, he never did come back. They asked him if he wanted his son to be brought home and he said no just leave him where he's at, that's where his life ended. So he's somewhere in the Philippines buried over there, died in a prison camp. So things like that I, I think a lot about and, and then uh then I look at myself and say well I'm glad I, I came through okay whereas others a lot of my friends, my relatives too that never come back. Some of my high school friends that I went to school with never came back. If I sit back and think about the, the ones that I used to play ball with, the ones I had a lot of fun with, never got to come home. So that uh I still get that hurt in my heart from all that. So I feel for these people now that you read in the paper now, how many soldiers got killed today, how many yesterday, how many thousands do we have now that died.

Jim: You talk about the friends and the people you knew that didn't come back. . . How old are you now you said?

Horace: I'll be 82 in November.

Jim: Do you ever wonder how you're the one that's still here?

Horace: The what?

Jim: That you're one of the ones still here.

Horace: Yeah, yeah I think about that a lot because I wonder if uh a certain friend of mine that didn't come back or would have a privilege and honor of having children and raising them and helping them. That was uh one of my reasons for taking care of my family after I became reoriented and uh making 'em get educated, helping 'em get education, I know my friends would've done the same thing and they never had that privilege and uh it would be uh it would be hard, I think it is hard for some of the uh people that uh were survivors of their young men getting killed and women uh missing out on being a grandfather or a grandmother, it takes, its takes to mind a lot of things like that you've got to consider. I had some very good friends that were, they were not Indian in fact I have a lot of friends that I worked with out here that I always had this knack of making friends. I try hard to make friends. Where I live now I got some of the I think nicest people uh good neighbors and we get along real good, have fun talking and over the backyard and we help each other and that's the way I grew up on prairie where I grew up my neighbor was a German man, he had uh 10 kids, that's where I got to learn how to speak a little German and I used to teach them how to speak a little Nez Perce. So we'd play together, but this man every time he butchered a beef he'd bring like pretty near a hind quarter to my grandma every time and she used to uh make gloves for him, buckskin gloves and he, he wasn't a rich man, during the summertime he wouldn't let his children wear shoes, all barefooted and my grandma got so feeling so sorry for them that she made a pair of moccasins for every one of them and they still talk about it. They called her grandma too, they remember her. So that's how people were way back in time, now its like some places you go you don't even know your neighbors, but uh I made that, I made mine uh when, whenever I go somewhere on trips now that I take part in a lot of things and I tell my neighbor I'm going to be gone for maybe four or five days will you get my mail and paper, oh yeah sure and I came, when I come back they've got 'em all saved for me so I don't have to worry about it. I've got a mailbox that sits right next to his so he checks mine at the same time.

Jim: Well it's wonderful getting a chance to talk to you again; I don't want to take up your whole day doing this. ..

Horace: Well yeah.

Jim:. . . because I could talk to you for hours. Is there anything, is there anything else that you'd like to tell us?

Horace: Yeah uh you know in, back in the world of uh of uh our time I'd say uh there was a, a lot of uh generosity, I mean it was like I was saying that man used to come and give us stuff and, but everybody was like that, they all wanted to share with each other. I remember when I came back from the army and this one man that used to be our neighbor he lived oh a couple miles away, but he got sick in the wintertime, so uh she came into town where I was living with my uncle and uh they wanted to know if I would come out and work for them, take care of the farm while he was sick. So I used to go out there everyday and help, so one day I told her your wood pile's getting pretty slim out there, so I told her I said well I'll, I'll call around and see if I can get a few guys to come and help and you know make some wood. So I made a few phone calls and the next day I come out there to her there were guys there with their, with their equipment and everything and we had a whole wood shed full of wood that day and oh man he was so proud of that, he was older than me, he said I'm glad I asked you to come and help me work, take care of my farm, I used to clean out the barn and take care of his cows and of course we used to have that when I was growing up, but when my mom got sick she had to sell a few cattle and stuff to get along, so uh I still had a few horses left and, but then when I moved back down here I, I had to leave that stuff and so I sold some of it, but that was living in the, in the past. I remember journeys going with saddle uh horses and wagons from Ferdinand clear down to New Meadows, Idaho. That's with wagon and horses. Now I can go down there and make it in a couple hours, but that used to take us days to get down there, camp over and move on for 15, 20 miles and camp again, but that was fun, to get to ride a horse all the way down there and back, but I always did like horses and I always will and dogs, I used to have a couple dogs, uh the story about my dogs when I had to leave for the service I had two dogs I used to everywhere I went with my horse they was there with me, everywhere, so I had to leave my horse and I had to leave my dogs, so I was, had to walk into town because the snow was pretty deep, we couldn't use our car, it was parked out on the highway uh where the highway was, it was about three miles over there, but anyway I had to walk into town to catch, catch the bus to take me over to the town and seed in Grangeville where all the inductees were going to leave from that day. So I, I told her before I left uh I told my mother I said don't let the dogs out for a couple hours after I leave, so they was uh laying by the stove asleep you know and mom used to let them in every morning, because I had to leave early, so when they woke up, they woke up and they run upstairs, couldn't find me up there and they used to run up and wake me up in the morning, run upstairs and they come back down and they looked around the house and they scratched on the door, they wanted to go outside and run over to the barn and all places and then she says pretty soon they disappeared, I guess they went into town looking for me. So late in the evening they come back scratching on the door and as soon as she let him in they run upstairs again and they couldn't find me, she said they done that for about three or four days and says oh they was here about two weeks, until one day they took into town I guess, never ever come back, she don't know what ever happened to them. So I told her well maybe they joined the navy I don't know, but she missed my dogs as well as me when and then my horse. The story about how I got that horse too and it goes on and on, time I start talking like this all these memories come back and once in a while I remember something when I'm eating breakfast with my wife and I'll have to tell her a story and, but she remembers a lot of things too. Both of us grew up with our single moms, that's how we met each other. In fact her mother helped me marry her daughter.

Jim: Nice gift.

Interviewed by Jim Peck, producer of The Idaho Homefront: World War II

43 years with mate

https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/a-meeting-of-minds/

CONFLUENCE PROJECT http://www.confluenceproject.org/news/legacy-of-horace-axtell/