- Originally published by the Washington Post on Thursday, February 17, 2005; Page A23 [here]
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saying that conditions in Indian country are worse than
conditions in Iraq, two Native American war veterans spoke out
yesterday against the Bush administration's plan to cut millions of
dollars from a fund that helps build houses on reservations.
Former Army specialist Gerald Dupris, 22, described his mother's
neighborhood inside the Cheyenne River Reservation in Eagle Butte,
S.D., as "a lot worse than what I left in the military in Iraq."
Dupris said lawmakers reviewing the president's budget "should realize
that a lot of Native veterans return home to worse than what they left.
They should realize what we've done for this country, and give back to
the Native reservation."
Native Americans represent less than 1 percent of the population, yet
they make up about 1.6 percent of the armed forces, according to
Defense Department statistics. Pfc. Lori Piestewa, 23, a Hopi Indian
who served with the 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq, was the first
female U.S. soldier to die in combat.
Between 2002 and 2004, the housing appropriations for Native Americans
and Native Hawaiians hovered at about $650 million. But last year,
budget cutters started chipping money away.
In fiscal 2005, the administration asked for $647 million and Congress
approved $25 million less than that. For fiscal 2006, President Bush
has asked for $582 million, alarming Native American housing advocates.
"The president's preaching fiscal responsibility, and in the same
breath he's asking for $82 billion for Iraq," said Chester Carl, chief
executive officer of the Navajo Housing Authority in Window Rock, Ariz.
Indians "are over there sacrificing their lives to improve the lives of
our enemy, yet they come back to conditions that are worse. There are
no jobs, there's no housing."
Carl is also chairman of the National American Indian Housing Council,
which sponsored the news conference with Dupris and another Native
American soldier, Staff Sgt. Julius Tulley.
The Bush administration painted a more positive picture. During
testimony yesterday before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs,
Michael Liu, assistant secretary for public and Indian housing at the
Department of Housing and Urban Development, said: "Tribes are taking
advantage of new opportunities to improve the housing conditions of the
Native American families residing on Indian reservations."
Liu acknowledged that the fiscal 2006 budget "is tight," but he said
that it "also recognizes the low-income housing needs in Native
American communities." The budget increases the budget authority for a
loan-guarantee program, and HUD will work to leverage federal dollars
with private investments for both rental housing and homeownership, Liu
said.
But that good news is not apparent on the ground, said Tulley, who
served in Baghdad with a reserve engineering battalion. During his
first days in Iraq, Tulley said other soldiers griped about living in
tents, hauling drinking water, eating tasteless food rations and not
being able to shower, watch television or access the Internet.
But "it didn't take long" for Navajos to adapt to that life, said
Tulley, 41, of Blue Gap, Ariz., the heart of Navajo country. "We were
used to it. I thought, 'What are you complaining about?' . . . What
they missed, it was nothing to us."
Blue Gap is "where you see a lot of poverty," he said.
"I'm not here to bash my commander in chief," Tulley said. "Nor
am I here to speak out against the military. I'm here to say that I've
gone to war. I put my life on the line. My brothers put their lives on
the line. I want to say, 'Look, I've done my part. My family's done
their part. Now I want something in return.' "