Apache 8

you never knew what you were going to face you were with a bunch of women that could handle anything this whole concept of having women was rather taboo to this local area the society here heavily depends on the menfolk and having the jobs I work with the hell attack and that's part of the air operations department we did have a helicopter go down and we had two fatalities the pilot and one of our crew members the wildfires in the west at least 30 major wildfires are burning including a 6,000 acre fire in Arizona's Fort Apache Reservation there's no way you can stop that fire because it was really running like crazy the wind was so strong I don't know how many miles per hour it was so it just went down and our vehicles shook we ran into a couple of crews from Montana and you go man we hear a lot of stuff about how just nothing but ladies can outwork some of these men and we're

like yeah pretty much can we bypassed everybody on that crew up that mountain down back up and then when we got there everybody was asking who are you who are you and we're like why not Apache Apache 8 thank you very much major funding for Apache 8 was provided by Native American public telecommunications through the corporation for public broadcasting additional funding was provided by the French American Charitable Trust Hanson Film Institute of the University of Arizona and the National Geographic all roads film project some encouraging reports tonight from the western wildfire zone firefighters say they are gaining

ground on the giant show oh fire in Arizona thanks in part to a remarkable team of firefighters a phone call in the middle of the night is routine for 51 year old Cheryl bones since 1976 bones has been crew boss for Apache number eight and that means travel often for weeks at a time 21 days without a break 90 hours a week on the line they have a reputation for killing the toughest of fire by reservation standards where jobs are scarce the pay is good we went out that we left our families behind I had three kids that I left behind five two and one years old when I started that was pretty tough chippery NBC News show low Arizona you never knew what you were going to face you were with a bunch of women that could handle anything my people respect me because I'm putting my life on the line to protect what what

is ours the beauty of the reservation when they first started they were probably the only women's all women's crew firefighting crew that was out there this all-male firefighting camp would be becoming organized the camp setting up then all of a sudden there's these ladies that come into camp and everybody's wondering exactly what's going on here all heads would turn we ran into a couple of crews from Montana and they go man we hear a lot of stuff about how just nothing but ladies can outwork some of these men and we're like yeah pretty much can their original title was Apache 6 in 74 75 they were looking for dependable individuals then they found out that the women were very dependable over the men crews that they had the gentleman who thought about pulling together a woman's

firefighting crew he went ahead and took that thought over to the tribal council it was an uphill battle the public was not open to women firefighters we had to fight for for the right to fight fires I mean as women since I was like outspoken and really aggressive they made me the Apache 6 crew leader we did not know if they were going to even issue us the proper equipment like yeah right I don't think so attitude you know this whole concept of having women was rather taboo to this local area the society here heavily depends on the men folk and having the jobs could have really presented a potential issue of strife between the men and women but it turned out totally different from what I could tell the women were fully accepted as a firefighting crew they were basically segregated from the men the men had their

own crews and the women had their own crew they recognized they're out there competing in a man's world and they actually can come back and say they've outperformed the men the summer of 74 I think it was my sister came and came up and said you know what their lady's working it being a firefighter you should go up there and join up and I said okay I'll give it a try I felt sort of like scared knowing that the job that she had was going to be getting into was dangerous and that it was a lot of work it was hard work that she was getting herself into and I think we got real good teaching from a mom that when we were a little kid she made sure that we all got up early and that we did our chores and we did everything we

were supposed to do before we went out and played and today you see her work you know she's still doing it our supervisor in force development came up to me and says well you're ready to take on a Apache six crew and I said me she was yeah I think you you're qualified you had the training the experience then and I said okay I'll give it a try so 1981 I took over the Apache six women's crew to be a squad boss of a 45 ladies but it was still the same crew but we just changed the name to Apache eight so from there Apache eight all women's crew was formed we did the same thing the male firefighters are doing working all day long in the smoke in the heat in the rain in the snow

climbing up ridges climbing down ridges chasing after hot spots I think to become a firefighter that you have to take a look at yourself first and see can I do this job I heard it's very hard job can I go out there 10 to 12 14 hours a day and be in the smoke which was very hard can I really do it when I was about 21 years old I already had two children and I went to the local trading store just down the street from us I saw some women dressed in forestry clothing and I said well what exactly do you do and they told me we're firefighters that winter when they were signing up I went down there and I asked if I could join and Chris Lila was the director at that time of forestry and he told me he said you

know with all the equipment on you once you get all the equipment on you he said that equipment's gonna weigh more than you and he said you're too small you're too thin you can't do it you won't be able to handle the job you don't say that to me you can't tell me I can't handle a job and so when he said that to me I was more determined than ever to go work for Apache 8 I worked for forestry from the time that my daughter was only one years old until she was about seven years old and the reason I know that is because her birthday is in July and I was at her very first birthday party and after that we I never made another birthday until she was seven years old so here we are working and and in the middle of the day we got this fire call we grabbed all our tools and we were walking and the man that was leading us

was you know this this big white man and so we're all walking we're walking after him he said you ladies can rest and we're like we just got here what's there to rest about you know let's go and so we nobody says anything we're all quiet we're very respectful and we start going again we go we probably go another mile and he rests again and we're like what is up with the resting bit here you know I thought we're supposed to be doing the fire and so by this time there's mumbling among us what's going on what's he doing why that white man resting you know and all of it's in Apache of course we don't want him to hear what's we're saying Cheryl says all right let's go we bypassed everybody on that crew up that mountain down back up and then when we got there everybody was asking who are you who are you and we're like why not Apache Apache 8 thank you very much you know get out of our way we got a job to do here Apache 8 they've traveled all over and been recognized as one of the top firefighters in the world if you will and they have been trained to protect our land here on the

reservation very sacred to us on these mountains the rivers the trees the wind the clouds we are one our reservation is 1.6 million acres we have 14,000 tribal members that live here our job is to protect our land from fires and we're on call to fight fires throughout the country do you copy just go ahead and leave all the trees that's in that area we go out every day out in field and we thin everybody runs a saw all day long

we go out every day and we thin out trees and this is seasonal job when we first started we didn't have any saws we had double bit axe that we just cut trees one day our supervisors came out with four saws and says okay I'm gonna show you once you guys have to catch on real fast so he showed us how to take it apart put the blade on put the chain on and how do we fill out the gas and oil and where the choke was and how to start it and how to hold it the four of us we look at each other say okay I can do this and we did we all got up standing there really gunning us on tell you truth it's hard work

we were very disciplined we had to get up and be at work on time you weren't allowed to come up 701 and say oh well I am I woke up and I'm I will come up and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm we're we gonna be bad You know, it's nice to get away from everything, come out here, work, where it's nice and

quiet. I just like working outdoors, you know, this is the only job that I really had. Besides that, you know, there's no other job on the reservation, too, because there's a lot of unemployment is high, and you know, this is what I like to do, working outdoors. We're actually waiting for a fire call, so whenever we get called in for a fire call, and we just get in our, like, say in Cheryl's truck, and she'll take us back down, and then we're all ready to go to a fire. I started maybe back in, like, 83 in that area, and Cheryl was also my crew boss, too. There's a sky, because I remember we went on a fire, Patch 8 ladies, and you know what, Patch 8, you're all stuck up. You guys don't talk to anybody. You're just all in a line and all

organized and everything, and I was like, we don't go to talk to guys and meet guys. The only thing we had on our mind was to fight fire. That's how we were trained by Cheryl. I kept turning around, looking behind me, waiting for her to yell at me, saying, get to work. Don't just stand there. She got crew boss of the year all the time, and it's because she worked us. You know, if we don't cut so much and do our job, then it makes her look bad, so we had to work, and we made her look good, because we were the laborers that she was pushing. She was like a drill sergeant. When she walked through that front gate in the morning, I would look up, standing back in the crew cab, and I just looked the look on her face, and I said, okay, we're not going to have a good day today. She was really... The crews also thought that was pretty tough, because I wanted things done right the first time. I kept my crew in line. I said, okay, we're going outside, crew. We're going to act

like a crew. We're going to stay together. When we go eat, we go eat. When we say, let's go to bed, everybody be in bed. I know they didn't like it, but... If she sees that there's a lazy bone in you, she'll work it out, and you believe me, she's did that to me a lot of times, and there's no lazy bone in me. To this day, I'm not lazy. I pull my weight, and I'm 43, and I can still work harder than these young guys, and I think it was through Cheryl's leadership that we did get recognized, even out of state, on the res, off the reservation, and it was through her. All right, just want to go over the qualifications and the requirements real quick. Again, the pack test is intended for those individuals in arduous duty. You can only do a fast walk, no running,

so both feet on the ground, and nothing off the ground while we're going through. Everybody good with that? Yes, yes. Okay, let's get your packs on and get ready. All right, Cheryl, let's get... You hold a pack. It's 45 pounds for 45 minutes, 3 miles, and you can't run. You have to walk, like, a fast pace. If not, you're going to get disqualified. You have to do your physical first, and then once that's cleared, you do your pack tests. And if you don't do any of that, then you don't go to any fires. You only get three chances to do the pack test. I actually did pretty good. My first assignment was working with the Apache 8 from 14 Days, and the ladies did, you know,

tell me a lot of, like, fire and where they've all gone. We got here, and it was just smoldering. It was struck by lightning. Usually we call them sleepers, because they pop up, like, a couple of days later. You know, it could have took off, too, because of the winds, but it didn't. Once we complete everything, they call in to dispatch. They'll bring more water. But this time, it was just only us. They didn't need anybody else.

It seems like everything is out, so we're ready to call it in and go to another fire. And we have handed some of the tools, modern tools, to the woman. And they can swing a parcell just as well as any strong man could. And they can climb the highest mountain and carry the heaviest burden on their back and still put out the fire. And we're so proud of that. And we have recognition because of that in this modern day of our firefighters. And our people, White Mountain Apache tribe, our lady folks, young ones, just take natural to it. Look what surrounds us. Trees, forests, mountains, rivers, lakes. We don't want to lose any of that. This is a beautiful country, God's country. And that's where our fighters, firefighters come from. And I know for these ladies, they didn't think about the hot fire or the miles they had to walk up on that mountain to get to that

fire. Us Apache women, you know, we do a lot. We take a lot. And we're very strong, strong spiritually, strong emotionally. And we have very unconditional love. Everybody that is clan related, you know, everybody. They're all part of my family. If anything should happen, we all get together. We all support each other. When I need them, they're there for me. We're very, very close. A lot of the older Apache families have big families. My mom and my dad had 11 girls. When I was a little girl, we didn't have running water. We didn't have electricity. We were raised in a three-room house, not three-bedroom, three-room house. My dad, he never said, oh my gosh, I have 11 girls. What the hell

am I going to do? You know? And he never said that. He was just like, all right, I have 11 girls. You guys are going to learn how to hunt. You guys will learn how to fish. You will go camping. I spoke nothing but Apache. I was a wild Apache. I mean, if my dad wanted a boy, I was a boy that he never had. You know, I get up early in the morning. I'm only six, seven years old and off I'd go. My mom would be so mad because she didn't know where I was. I'm off riding a horse. I'm off riding, you know, crossing the river all by myself. My dad was like, let her be, let her be, you know. And because my dad had been off the reservation, he would come back and he would say, it is so important you learn to speak English. It's good that you guys can speak Apache, but you've got to learn English. You have got to get an education. You've got to be able to walk in both worlds. Back then, different churches were coming on the reservation. One of the churches that came on the reservation was the LDS Church,

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. All us girls, when we turned eight years old, not only were we baptized, but that summer, this big old bus came into town and off we went. Some went to Utah, some went to Colorado, some went to California, California, and we were given to other white people, LDS people, and then there we were, we were supposed to go to school. So I was all excited, I'm going to go, I'm going to go, you know. And then I realized, it dawned on me, I'm eight years old, and I'm going on this bus, and I'm going to go to California, and I'm going to live with a family I don't even know, and what. And then I changed my mind. I was like, no, I don't want to go. And I was promising all sorts of things. I promise I'll be good. I promise I won't run away. I promise I won't cross the river. I'll haul the water. I'll chop the wood. I'll do all these things. Just don't send me, Dad. Don't send me.

He said, Katie, you are my wild one. He said, nobody can break you. He said, I need you to go because I need you to learn. He said, I need you to speak English. I need you to come back here and be the voice of the people. You get on that bus, and you will not cry, and you will not cause a scene. When I got to California, I tried to run away. They took us to the LDS temple, the Oakland temple, and I ran away in the temple until they found me, and then they dragged me to my foster family. They are the family I lived with from the time I was eight years old until the time I graduated from high school. When my daughter turned eight years old, I cried. I was like, oh my gosh, I could not do that. I could not do that. The strength and the courage it took for my mom and dad, especially my dad, to foresee that the education was that important. I had to get an education.

The wildfires in the West, at least 30 major wildfires are burning, including a 6,000-acre fire in Arizona's Fort Apache Reservation. There's no way you can stop that fire, because it was really running like crazy, and the fire was ahead of us up there. Somehow that fire, it turned around. It came back at us, and it's like, you guys get out of there. And I mean, we were just running like crazy. Some of us were like falling down that hill. Some of us were sliding down. You can hear that fire coming down that hill, and you can hear the houses blowing up and sound like a freight train coming. The wind was so strong. I don't know how many miles per hour it was. It just went down, and our vehicles shook. That was something. Ah!

And then after that fire started, I think it was two to three days later, another fire was started by another individual. And with the fuel conditions, the location of the fire, it was just non-stoppable. If you just follow the pencil line, it went all the way north. That's the portion of the fire that actually burnt on the reservation. And as far as a lot of the Fort Apache crews, along with the Apache 8 personnel, a lot of us were working on the western side of the rodeo fire, and those were local resources. We have lost half of the reservation, and it was just sad to lose all that timber and everything, and all the wild animals. It was pretty too in that area. A lot of people were just hurt by what happened. And we all, you know, try to come back together and move on. That's why here on this eastern part of our reservation, every little fire that we,

we get on, we try to take care of it right away, so we will not have another rodeo Chetiskai fire. The fire burned 500,000 acres of land and destroyed over 400 homes. Fortunately, due to the efforts of Apache firefighter Rick Lupe, the towns of Xolo, Pinetop, White River, and others narrowly escaped the same fate as those seared by the rodeo Chetiskai fire. Rick was a Apache hotshot. Apache hotshots were known worldwide as the world's elite firefighters. He was the one that led the crew on all the fires, so he was doing the same job as Cheryl, must run in their blood. I was always close to my nephew Rick. I was proud when he became a wildland firefighter.

In May 2003, they were doing a spring burning. That's when Rick called and said he was going to go check the spot fire route. While we were still walking, we heard Rick call dispatch. And he says, okay, I'm hurt. And the only thing that ran through him was, oh, he must have fell. And then right in the smoke, Rick came out. And his face was just ashy looking. And he says, I'm burnt. I'm hurt. And he says, look at my hands. The winds were so strong that it blew away his emergency shelter. Rick was burned over 40 % of his body. Rick was burned over 40 % of his body. He says, my hands. And then, this whole hand was burnt, skinned, hanging down.

I thought he would walk out of there because after Cheryl telling me what he went through, I thought if he got out of this one, that he would walk out of the hospital. After Rick's accident, I just didn't want to go out anymore. But at least a year after it happened that I finally went back. And this past season, I finally committed myself that, okay, if this is my job, I need to go back and face it. And face fire.

Everybody, the whole 4th Street, just the reservation, just was affected. Everybody just gave her support. Firefighters worldwide. The Apache people are very strong people. They are a very proud people. When there's an illness, when there's a death, you can see the families unite, friends unite. People come out of the woodwork to help out of respect because they care, because they love these people, because they're one of them. You're me. I'm you. That's the attitude that they have, and you got to love it. We have a lot of ceremonies in our culture. One of the biggest ceremonies that is open to the public is the sunrise dance ceremony. When your daughter becomes of age, she goes and she tells her parents. And then they're taught that from a very young age.

You know, we need to know as soon as it happens. You know, you got to let us know, you got to let us know. I mean, there's no privacy here, okay? I said, what's going on here, mom? She goes, you're going to be dancing for us. And I said, what kind of dance? Through the ceremony, this girl can be blessed with a long life, so that one day she can gain wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and prayers. Everybody goes, you're going to be dancing.

And I was like, no, not me, mother, I told her. Then my Aunt Dolly comes, she goes, you have to do it. You have to do it for us. You can't say no now. I was doing it in high school then. I was an athletic type. And then here comes Bill Hess. He was an in-law to us. I said, there's some guys out in Washington DC, wants to see you. I said, for what? He says, you know your sunrise dance? I said, yeah. I took some pictures out there, and they really like it, he told me. He said, well, those people in National Geographic, they want to see you in person and interview you in person tomorrow. So I said, what? I can go tomorrow. I got practice. I want to play sports. And I said, well, your Aunt Dolly can go. My Aunt Dolly, she was there all the time. She was like the most important person to me in my life. I'm supposed to go.

But she said, I don't want to go. She said, I'm afraid of playing. I don't want to fly. You're the one that always jump in there and want to travel. Why don't you go? Oh, come on. I said, you can do it. No, I want you to go. So that's how I got in. I said, OK, then, if Aunt Dolly's going to go, then I'll go. So we all took a trip to Washington, D.C. So that's how this article came about in National Geographic. The sunrise dance helped prepare me for the biggest challenges in my life. Like being a wildland firefighter. I'm going to take a shower, so don't answer the door for anybody.

OK? OK. Here, get your movie. I don't know which one you want to watch. I want this movie. And that one again? Yeah. She's going to be leaving in the morning, maybe about 7. She's got another assignment out in California. And then where it picks up again, where I'm going to be left home with the kids, taking care of the kids and being at work, taking care of what needs to be done at home, wait for her phone calls every day. But, you know, she's out there to work and do what she's assigned to do. She really does help me a lot. So a lot of times, she's always there to help me out, even though she has never been went into firefighting or anything like that. So it's like, I guess from all these years I've been fighting fires, something will be going on out there and I'll be telling her all this stuff.

And then from there, she would just know that I am doing my job out there, even though she doesn't know all about wildland firefighting. I do what I can to help her and push her, you know. But she's gone this far and she still has a little bit of ways to go, you know, to be a crew rep now. That's what we're looking for now. Or maybe a couple of years. Yeah. So I guess she is my boss then. Assigning her from home. Boss at work, boss at home. The real boss there, with the family. Zero, watch where you going. Well, we've been together 15 years. This past April, it's been 15. She helped me raise my daughter.

My daughter was only three at the time we got to know her. So if anything, she's always asking about Nita. Is Nita home? Is Nita on the fire? At least we have her. She has us. You know, that's what's important to us. I went to Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Mississippi. I went to Texas, California, Montana. The two-day road trip coming from White River, Arizona, to our main helicopter base is Omec. The HeliTac is part of the Air Operations Department. And for you to go on an assignment, you have to take interagency helicopter training. You have to take that before you can actually be a helicopter crew member. After our contract is over, we go out maybe to Oregon, Montana,

and we support other fires there. Working with the HeliTac, I know that there's a lot of people that want to get into that job. And I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. My main concern is safety first, doing a bucket drop out on the fire. But when he goes in to get water, there's this bucket that it opens up, and it kind of opens up like an umbrella. Then they fly it out to wherever a division needs drops, and then they'll let the pilot know if there's flare-ups or anything. They let people know on the ground. So it's like they're the eyes in the sky, they say. My husband, he worked with the Hot Shots. And I started here first with the HeliTac. We did have a helicopter go down, and we had two fatalities.

The pilot and one of our crew members. And the other two survived. That was really hard too. It's good business, firefighting and good money. The only bad thing is just being away from your family and kids, and you miss out on a lot of stuff. It is hard being away from them. There's time when people, they ask like if I ever get tired of him, because you know, I work with him every day. But no, I don't. I'm glad that he's working with me. We try to both help each other out, make our job a lot easier. Now I'm moving up. This season, I got to be one of the first two women to ever work with the Fort Apache Hot Shots. When my wife was on the fire, it was tough.

It was tough. I have two little kids that I have to cook for. A lot of washing clothes, cleaning the house, and cooking is what I did with my two kids while my wife was on the fire. Most Apache men don't do that. You know, it really proved to me at a very young age how committed he was to our family. I look back on our life together, and I think how fortunate we were to have met. I was in the army. I had come back from officer training school. So there I was, and I had to go back to school. I came back, and the money I got paid wasn't enough. We had babysitters we had to pay back. We had bills that we had to catch up on. We had all these things that we had to do. And one night, I told Lee, I said, you know what, I have to go back to school tomorrow, and we have no money. You know, what am I going to do?

He said, I'll be back, and I'm just going to go think. And I was like, great, you know, he's going to go think while I need money. And I was like, all right. So he left, and then he came back about 8 o 'clock. But he just walked in the back door, and I said, where's your truck? And I thought it broke down somewhere. And then he handed over all this money, and he said, here's the money for you to go back to school on. And I said, where did you get the money? And he said, I sold my truck. That was his only ride. He would be on foot so I could go back to school with the kids. We were young, and yet he knew about investing into his family. I am very proud of Lee. He grew up without a father, but he's an excellent father. When I come home, I want to be able to implement different programs,

and start different things, and change different things, because a lot of the things that are here don't work. And trying to change things scares everybody here. Like, change is just like, you know, taboo almost. And to work that in traditionally, and to work that in, you know, with just everyone here within the culture, it's going to take time. And I want to be able to know what I'm doing, and how to do it, and do it right. But I still come home, and I still participate in all, like, the church ceremonies, and I do all the different things that I'm, you know, that my parents have taught me. Everyone's like, oh, you're just like your mom. And I was like, oh, no. Cheryl didn't get to see her daughter, Martha, become just like her. Martha was murdered by drug dealers who thought she was an informant. So, not a single day goes by without saying her name in the morning and evening.

Me and my kids. Martha was probably about an eighth grader. I don't remember the year or so. It had to do with meth, I guess there's a lot of meth in the reservation, and my son got involved, and I didn't know that my son was into that. I had no idea. When you see somebody doing something wrong, somebody must have, you know, the sense to say, hey, that's enough. We did enough already and can't do anymore. But their intent was just to kill her,

and that's what they did. My son, after all that, the trial, he got life with no parole. And he got in at 21, and he just turned 25 in July. Cheryl and I go way back. And, you know, being on a fire, we become family. It's like we all watch each other's back. We watch each other's kids. If somebody's out of town, then we, you know, look after each other. And I ran into Cheryl, and I tried to talk to her. She was like, no, no, no, Dean, no, no. And I, I told her, I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry, and I'm glad it's all over with. And I just wanted to know that you're in my prayers, your family, and especially you. So I haven't really went in complete circle grieving for Rick. And then my daughter came on, so I started from the top again, trying to go with the full circle. And I said, I have, I didn't even finish one circle, and then starting another one.

And I said, this is, I'm part of the hatred and the blame. And on this one, I still stuck on the hatred and the blame that I'm supposed to go around full circle to have my life back and complete. And our tradition, when somebody passes, it seems like the family would get, start talking, you know, well, he must have known that this was going to happen. And in our case, we feel that Martha must have known something was going to happen because she had wanted her boys to be with the dad. And then for her daughter, Hope Rain, to be with Cheryl. There's a lot of, um, a lot of things that's going on around here on the reservation.

One day, I was staying, standing in the service station, and I've seen some people hauling out, maybe about like 10, 15 cases of beer. And they were just talking, laughing, saying that, hey, you know, that down there on the res, um, they have bootleggers, have so many bootleggers, and about 200 and something drug dealers. And they were just making fun of it. And I felt really bad standing there. And here, they were selling it, you know, they were making money. But then, you know, I was thinking, ah, this is how they see us down there, that all of us are, are alcoholics, and all of us are into drugs. I lost two sisters. My oldest one, we lost her when she had just gotten accepted into a law school in New Mexico. She was coming home, and she got hit head-on by a drunk driver, and she died instantly. And then, about maybe 10 years later, I lost my third sister to a drunk driver that ran her over

in the middle of town. So, needless to say, I'm, I'm, I'm not big on alcohol. Ms. Abe, can you lead us in the prejudices? When I retire, I would like to be a judge. And the reason I would like to be a judge is, as a social worker, I have seen a lot of children that have been placed back into homes that they shouldn't have been. I've seen a lot of children that have been, um, neglected by the system. And I don't like that. So, Cradle Board and White River Elementary School are completely full. We're fully staffed in those two schools. Ms. Abe, I was in a foster home, and I wanted to come home, and I wasn't allowed to come home. And I hated that, hated that, knowing that I had a family on the reservation, and I couldn't come home and see them.

Ms. Abe, a long, long time ago, the Army was in charge of us here. That's why we have Fort Apache. But the Army couldn't keep track of all the health problems that we were having that they brought with them. And so the Navy said, okay, we'll take care of them. So then the Navy came in, and that's what's called the Commissioned Corps. The Commissioned Corps people who wear this uniform are all medical, in the medical field. You have to have a degree to wear the uniform. When I got my bachelor's, I was commissioned second lieutenant. I got my bars. My dad and my husband put those on me. And then when I got my master's, I got promoted to a first lieutenant. Once I went over and was in the Army and served during Desert Storm, I got my captain's bars. And then after Desert Storm was over, then I came home, and I'm now a commander in the Navy,

which is equivalent to a lieutenant colonel in the Army. When the Army tried to teach me about loyalty, I was like, no way. And this is something the tribe has taught me since the day I was born. Integrity, something they taught me since the day I was born. We already know that. That's who we are. That's what made us. If we are going to succeed as a tribe, and the tribe keeps saying we're a sovereign nation, if they really mean that, then sovereign nation means we stand on our own. Education is the only way. The future is truly our children. And I want to make sure that they are around to be able to succeed so that we can have a tribe 300 years from now and still be able to move forward and hold our own and be proud of who we are. The kind of pride I experienced with the women of Apache 8. In the Army, they have sergeants. Cheryl was one of those high-ranking sergeants. She stated the order,

and we followed it to the T. Back then, if we had joined the Army and any of those armed forces, we would have made it. And Cheryl, you know, I think she's going to become a real strong elder here on the reservation. Cheryl does know a lot. Did you know there's a statue of Cheryl in Boise, Idaho? Oh, really? I didn't know that. This is a secret. See, she didn't even tell her secrets. Golly, how neat. dont know what else? it tracks her 24 miles. She also wanted to investigate and see where she saw her growing up. So, it's an impossible for her. The terrain is so cold.

She challenges theила and her logo. Dane, Cheryl, she's stunning firefighters. 12 firefighters, which I dedicate as I. People from different agencies comment about Apache 8, you know. He says, whatever happened to the Apache 8 women crew? And I go, it went co-ed, both men and women. He goes, man, those women were strong. They were hard-working women. I says, yeah, we're Apache women. I said, Apache women have to be strong. Being the only man on Apache 8, you know, there's no distinguish between a woman and a man when it comes down to work. I was fortunate to be part of them.

They might not know that, but they made a history out there. These ladies, a few of them have retired. Some are still working. Some maybe have changed to different professions, but this firefighting, being on the Apache 8, gave them the stepping stone that they needed to further enhance themselves. And I know that if given the opportunity, they would do it again. It was Planeta.

I thought I had a chance for a job. I was a man Buff Alman said. I would win one of them for a number of years. I, but I used toak. I was silly. I've magazine book for so long. I believe it. Hopefully, before I retire, I'll take the Nile Women's crew out again. Let's do it one more time. Let's do it one more time. Let's do it one more time.

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