WEBVTT 00:00.186 --> 00:02.936 (haunting music) 00:04.000 --> 00:07.336 - Before I was Harvey Pratt, I was Vehunchkiss. 00:07.336 --> 00:09.830 Vehunchkiss is my first Cheyenne name 00:09.830 --> 00:11.320 and I was named Vehunchkiss 00:11.320 --> 00:15.150 because I was born in a house, I wasn't born in a hospital, 00:15.150 --> 00:17.510 and my mother had all her aunts there, 00:17.510 --> 00:18.623 and I'm a veil baby. 00:19.530 --> 00:21.430 A veil baby is someone that has a membrane 00:21.430 --> 00:23.080 that's attached to them and across them 00:23.080 --> 00:24.777 and they're supposed to be special. 00:24.777 --> 00:26.947 So those old women said, "Well, look at him. 00:26.947 --> 00:29.947 "He wants to be a chief," and that's what Vehunchkiss means. 00:31.057 --> 00:32.857 - [Woman] "For us, warriors are not 00:32.857 --> 00:35.087 "what you think of as warriors. 00:35.087 --> 00:37.817 "The warrior is not someone who fights, 00:37.817 --> 00:41.037 "because no one has the right to take another life. 00:41.037 --> 00:42.867 "The warrior, for us, is one 00:42.867 --> 00:45.907 "who sacrifices himself for the good of others. 00:45.907 --> 00:48.697 "His task is to take care of the elderly, 00:48.697 --> 00:52.477 "the defenseless, those who cannot provide for themselves, 00:52.477 --> 00:56.640 "and, above all, the childer, the future of humanity," 00:56.640 --> 00:57.563 Sitting Bull. 01:00.490 --> 01:02.100 - When I was a little boy, 01:02.100 --> 01:04.640 my three brothers and I were just downtown 01:04.640 --> 01:07.640 and I saw this group of guys that we did not get along with. 01:08.700 --> 01:11.262 I said, "Let's run down the alley," 01:11.262 --> 01:15.050 and my brothers, those guys hollered at them 01:15.050 --> 01:16.690 and they caught them in the alley. 01:16.690 --> 01:18.800 They had a big fight, and I stood on this end. 01:18.800 --> 01:21.810 I watched it and I didn't go down and help my brothers. 01:21.810 --> 01:25.240 I couldn't have been nine, 10, and I cried 01:25.240 --> 01:26.447 and my brother said, "What are you crying for? 01:26.447 --> 01:30.743 "You didn't do nothing," and from that point on, 01:33.190 --> 01:35.533 I made a point to never do nothing. 01:36.510 --> 01:39.223 I made a point to never be a coward. 01:41.120 --> 01:44.030 We were taught to respect veterans and I thought 01:44.030 --> 01:46.560 that's the only place for me is the Marine Corps. 01:46.560 --> 01:50.230 After 50 years, Marine Corps is still important to me, 01:50.230 --> 01:51.080 it's still important to me, 01:51.080 --> 01:52.638 veterans are still important to me. 01:52.638 --> 01:53.471 (rhythmic chanting) 01:53.471 --> 01:58.120 The Marine Corps instills that warrior mentality in you 01:58.120 --> 02:01.280 the same as the Cheyenne and Arapaho 02:01.280 --> 02:03.350 and a lot of the Plains cultures, you know. 02:03.350 --> 02:07.160 I think that's why there are so many Marines 02:07.160 --> 02:08.453 that are Native American. 02:11.640 --> 02:16.168 That Charlie Company 3rd Recon was the first combat unit 02:16.168 --> 02:19.950 into Vietnam, 'cause we weren't supposed to be there. 02:19.950 --> 02:21.120 Now they had Marines there. 02:21.120 --> 02:24.463 They had advisors and they had the air wing people there. 02:25.360 --> 02:27.720 They sent us there to protect the base 02:27.720 --> 02:29.480 and to protect the air wing. 02:29.480 --> 02:31.290 They needed combat troops there, 02:31.290 --> 02:33.700 so that's what they trained us specifically for, 02:33.700 --> 02:38.590 to rescue downed pilots, to protect Marine Corps assets, 02:38.590 --> 02:39.680 to protect the airfield, 02:39.680 --> 02:43.630 and protect the Marines that were there. 02:43.630 --> 02:46.490 So that's why they sent 47 of us. 02:46.490 --> 02:48.923 Was there seven months, seven months. 02:50.280 --> 02:52.310 When I got out of the Marine Corps I started painting again, 02:52.310 --> 02:54.280 I started painting and I started selling. 02:54.280 --> 02:56.840 I started selling, I started doing some shows, 02:56.840 --> 03:00.240 and then concentrating on our culture and our tribe 03:00.240 --> 03:03.143 and one day, and as a young police officer, 03:04.350 --> 03:06.810 they knew that I was drawing and there was a lady 03:06.810 --> 03:10.370 that had been shot in the face with a gun 03:10.370 --> 03:13.260 and a guy had killed her husband in her house. 03:13.260 --> 03:14.927 They didn't think she was gonna live and he said, 03:14.927 --> 03:16.727 "Harvey," he said, "I know you draw," he said. 03:16.727 --> 03:19.370 "Do you think you could go draw that shooter?" 03:19.370 --> 03:21.040 I said, "Sure." 03:21.040 --> 03:23.330 I had no idea, I had no idea how to do it, 03:23.330 --> 03:24.710 what to go about it, 03:24.710 --> 03:28.120 but I went over there and I made a drawing of this guy. 03:28.120 --> 03:29.567 I made a drawing of him and they saw a car 03:29.567 --> 03:30.570 in the neighborhood 03:30.570 --> 03:32.590 that kind of matched one of the drive-bys, 03:32.590 --> 03:33.840 and they were going through this neighborhood 03:33.840 --> 03:34.673 and knocked on a door 03:34.673 --> 03:36.180 and they showed the drawing to a young girl. 03:36.180 --> 03:39.540 She was 17 years old and they said, "Do you know this guy?" 03:39.540 --> 03:43.570 and she said, "Yes, you got him, that's my husband." 03:43.570 --> 03:45.710 Probably if I hadn't caught that very first guy 03:45.710 --> 03:47.550 I'd probably never done another drawing, 03:47.550 --> 03:48.850 but I caught the first one 03:49.690 --> 03:53.383 and I thought, "Well, crap, I can do this," you know? 03:54.450 --> 03:57.040 Once people saw that I did that, they started calling me. 03:57.040 --> 03:57.987 So the next thing I knew I was doing them, 03:57.987 --> 04:00.580 I started doing them all around this metro area 04:00.580 --> 04:03.710 and then that circle just kept getting bigger and bigger. 04:03.710 --> 04:07.657 Art was gravy, it was after I did my regular job 04:07.657 --> 04:09.210 and I earned my money doing that 04:09.210 --> 04:11.220 and taking care of my family and my kids. 04:11.220 --> 04:15.700 Then awards started coming and then art turned into a job, 04:15.700 --> 04:17.170 the forensics turned into a job. 04:17.170 --> 04:19.830 You know, I ended up doing cranial facial reconstructions 04:19.830 --> 04:22.083 and soft-tissue reconstructions 04:22.083 --> 04:25.390 and witness-description drawings and age progressions. 04:25.390 --> 04:27.510 You know, I found kids that were abducted, 04:27.510 --> 04:30.480 done them 10 and 12 years later, by aging them. 04:30.480 --> 04:34.097 I thought, "How did this happen? 04:34.097 --> 04:37.570 "How did I get to do those things?" 04:37.570 --> 04:40.130 when I didn't even have the training. 04:40.130 --> 04:43.410 I think that that's part of Marine Corps training 04:43.410 --> 04:46.720 is that, you know, you adapt, overcome and adapt. 04:46.720 --> 04:50.520 I think that that always instilled me to do a lot of, 04:50.520 --> 04:51.770 and I'm not gonna say great things, 04:51.770 --> 04:54.700 but I did some really nice things in law enforcement 04:54.700 --> 04:58.100 for investigators that solved a lot of crimes 04:58.100 --> 05:00.520 all across the country, you know, 05:00.520 --> 05:02.410 and in foreign countries. 05:02.410 --> 05:05.510 When we were looking at this memorial 05:05.510 --> 05:10.430 and the Smithsonian sent a team of people around 05:10.430 --> 05:13.320 to talk to tribal people and find out 05:13.320 --> 05:15.460 what does the tribe, what do Indian veterans want 05:15.460 --> 05:20.460 in this memorial, the Director of the Cheyenne-Arapaho, 05:20.550 --> 05:22.630 Director of the Veterans' Club, 05:22.630 --> 05:24.370 he said, "Harvey, you gotta enter that." 05:24.370 --> 05:27.970 So I dreamed about it, you know, and a concept came to me. 05:27.970 --> 05:29.167 I said, "I don't wanna do a statue. 05:29.167 --> 05:32.703 "I wanna do something that you can walk into, 05:32.703 --> 05:34.463 "that you can be a part of." 05:34.463 --> 05:36.467 When I looked at everybody else's and I thought, 05:36.467 --> 05:39.780 "You know what, they're doing statues, sculptures," 05:39.780 --> 05:43.467 and mine is about here, your heart. 05:43.467 --> 05:44.800 (singing in foreign language) 05:44.800 --> 05:47.000 I'm one of the Southern Cheyenne chiefs. 05:47.000 --> 05:48.760 I've been a chief for 20 years 05:48.760 --> 05:50.360 and we have a lot of ceremonies. 05:51.950 --> 05:54.990 When you do these ceremonies, there's certain things 05:54.990 --> 05:57.310 that you have to do, you have to be respectful. 05:57.310 --> 06:00.310 You can't, like if you go to the Sun Dance, 06:00.310 --> 06:02.010 you can't run, you can't take water, 06:02.010 --> 06:04.410 you can't take food around a Sun Dance. 06:04.410 --> 06:05.760 You have to make a sacrifice 06:05.760 --> 06:07.230 along with those dancers, you know? 06:07.230 --> 06:08.410 I thought, "That's what I want to do. 06:08.410 --> 06:13.267 "I want a place that people can come and honor veterans 06:13.267 --> 06:15.200 "and make a little sacrifice for veterans," 06:15.200 --> 06:16.700 because they made a sacrifice. 06:17.750 --> 06:19.750 That's what I wanted to do and so that's what I, 06:19.750 --> 06:21.480 I built my design about that. 06:21.480 --> 06:26.110 It's all about an unending evolution of things 06:26.110 --> 06:28.210 that happen, you can walk into the circle 06:28.210 --> 06:30.490 and be a part of it and then walk out. 06:30.490 --> 06:33.040 I called it Warrior's Circle of Honor. 06:33.040 --> 06:35.590 It allows warriors to come in and tell a war story. 06:38.270 --> 06:41.070 I don't think I could have been just an artist, you know? 06:41.070 --> 06:44.480 I had to have that adrenalin rush, 06:44.480 --> 06:46.200 and I think that some people just have to have it 06:46.200 --> 06:48.000 and I was one of those kind of guys.