{"id":328407,"date":"2024-12-07T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=328407"},"modified":"2024-12-07T22:31:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T22:31:14","slug":"augusta-va-veteran-honors-his-american-indian-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=328407","title":{"rendered":"Augusta VA Veteran honors his American Indian heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Charles \u201cLittle Eagle\u201d Reyes, Army Vietnam Veteran, shared facts about his family lineage during American Indian Heritage month in November. His father is a member of the Kiowa Nation and his mother is a member of the Cheyenne Nation from the Twin River Reservation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/news.va.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/11\/Tim-and-Charles_r1.jpg\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Vet Center\u2019s Tim Prendergast and Charles \u201cLittle Eagle\u201d Reyes at a weekend pow-wow <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Little Eagle reminded us that we each have a role in helping Veterans access the services they\u2019ve earned and deserve. As a former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.va.gov\/augusta-health-care\/\">Augusta VA<\/a> employee of 46 years, he never took that responsibility lightly.<\/p>\n<p>He shared the significance of each feather on his regalia to illustrate how each piece is purposeful, guided by \u201cThe Creator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Little Eagle demonstrated a traditional American Indian dance commonly performed at a pow-wow, he didn\u2019t skip a beat in sharing how vital the drums play a role in communicating with the Creator.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cThe pow-wows connected all of our communities.\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cDance taught us how to be filled with the creator spirit. The pow-wows connected all of our communities together,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n<p>After his time at VA, he went back to school and is now an instructor to Aiken youth at the Aiken Technical Career Center where he teaches a variety of public safety and emergency response courses to high school students. \u201cI wanted to give everything I had to make the creator proud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>November was American Indian Heritage Month, an opportunity to educate VA staff and the local Veteran community about tribes. It raised awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and today, and how tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.va.gov\/135845\/help-native-american-veterans-with-a-va-career\/\">Meet Native American Veterans where they live with a VA career \u2013 VA News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charles \u201cLittle Eagle\u201d Reyes, Army Vietnam Veteran, shared facts about his family lineage during American Indian Heritage month in November. His father is a member of the Kiowa Nation and his mother is a member of the Cheyenne Nation from the Twin River Reservation. Vet Center\u2019s Tim Prendergast and Charles \u201cLittle Eagle\u201d Reyes at a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":328409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,840],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-native-american"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328410,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328407\/revisions\/328410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/328409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}