Colorado Rep. Larry Don Suckla recently co-sponsored a resolution to honor Native veterans for their service and sacrifice in defending our nation. It passed.
Suckla, elected to District 58 seat in November, was a prime sponsor, alongside House Majority Leader Monica Duran. Sens. Cleave Simpson and Matt Ball were prime sponsors on the Senate side.
In total, 94 legislators backed it.
“It’s a humbling experience to honor people who were here first,” said Suckla.
Last week, when the resolution passed, Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart and Southern Ute Chairman Melvin Baker visited Denver, and Suckla was asked to walk them down the center aisle.
“I grew up with the Ute tribe. I went to school with them,” Suckla said. “Since I was born, we’ve been lifelong friends.”
And so it was quite an honor to be part of it all.
“We recognize the indispensable contributions of Native Americans in advancing United States interests, military successes, and global stability, often as the U.S. government failed to fulfill its federal trust responsibility and protect tribal treaty rights, lands and resources,” the resolution reads.
For over 200 years, it said, Native Americans have “served with distinction in the United States military in every major conflict,” earning medals and honors like Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and the Congressional Medal of Honor, to name a few.
The resolution goes on to “honor the disproportionately high military service, sacrifice and patriotism of Native American veterans.”
Their contributions started during the Revolutionary War, when the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Tribes sent 600 soldiers to fight.
In “the American Civil War, roughly 3,600 Native Americans served in the Union Army,“ the resolution remembers.
More than 12,000 Natives served in World War I, “despite the fact that one-third of all Native Americans still had not been granted full citizenship by the United States government at the time.”
During World War II, they had “the highest per capita contribution to the total war effort of any demographic group in the United States.” More than a third of “able-bodied Native American men between the ages of 18 and 50, and as much as 70 percent of certain tribal populations, served.”
The resolution also remembers the 400 Code Talkers, the 42,000 Native soldiers in the Vietnam War, the more than 10,000 in the Korean War and the roughly 31,000 Native Americans and Alaska Natives who are on active duty today.
“Their dedication to defending our nation, both past and present, deserves our deepest gratitude and respect,” the Colorado House Republicans wrote in a Facebook post.
