Celebrating roots in Iraq

Staff reports - Tulsa World

A strange thing sits in the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of the American Indian: a 50-gallon drum, cut in half, with canvas material from an army cot stretched tight over the open end.

Though not a traditional drum, it served its purpose — to help bring together American Indians serving in Iraq for the first inter-tribal powwow in a combat zone.

Pryor resident and Cherokee citizen Jon Ketcher was at the powwow, along with Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Osage citizens, dancing, singing, playing stickball and Indian marbles and giving other servicemen and women a chance to learn about American Indian culture.

A Cherokee Nation Marshal for almost eight years, Ketcher, 37, entered the military in 1989 straight out of high school.

When U.S. forces began preparing for the Gulf War in 1990, Ketcher and the VMFA 212 squadron, under the Marine Corps' Third Air Wing, were sent to Bahrain; when the war began in 1991, he served as an ordnanceman, loading and reloading aircraft with ammunition for combat missions.

Often, alarms signaling incoming Scud missiles would sound, with a voice coming over loudspeaker telling troops to don masks and gloves and to take cover, Ketcher said.

One night as Ketcher was walking out to the tarmac, where crews were working only by flashlight, the alarm sounded, followed by two loud booms that signaled Patriot missiles being launched to intercept the Scuds.

Ketcher said he heard tools dropping and hitting the tarmac and saw the crew members throw down their flashlights, then heard the running coming toward him.

"It sounded like a herd of buffalo coming at you,'' Ketcher said. "They were giving it all they had to get to the maintenance bunkers, so I thought I would do the same."

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