Separating the chiefs from the Indians

The Air Force’s top chief wants to break with a tradition that some call less-than-sacred

 

By Bryant Jordan
Times Staff Writer

 

The image can be found on promotion ceremony programs, coffee mugs and memento coins: the bold chevrons of the Air Force chief master sergeant alongside iconic images of an American Indian chief in war bonnet and aneagle in flight.

 

It’s a merging of chevrons and feathers — now going on for about a generation — that the Air Force chiefs view as positive, intended to honor tribal chiefs.

 

But that’s not how American Indians always see it. And, of more immediate concern to the Air Force chiefs, the service’s top noncommissioned officer also has problems with the cultural morphing.

 

“There is no official correlation between the U.S. Air Force rank of chief master sergeant and Native Americans,” Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Gerald R. Murray told the chiefs in an April 15 letter that called such use of American Indian symbols inappropriate.

 

“A chief should be recognized for leadership,” Murray said, but it becomes a problem “if customs and traditions overshadow the role of the leader.”

 

When the chief speaks

 

While American Indian groups have been vocal in their opposition to the use of their images and symbols for unrelated groups like professional sports teams, Murray said his letter was not a response to pressure from any group.

 

“I did not do this because Native Americans took issue with this,” he said, but because he wants Air Force chiefs to get away from traditions and ceremonies that have nothing to do with the Air Force.

 

In fact, though Murray’s letter to chiefs was sent in April, he has quietly been talking to them about the matter for about three years, he said. What he wants is more discussion among the chiefs themselves, he said.

 

But how many Air Force chief master sergeants will act on Murray’s concerns remains to be seen. The head of a group of retired chiefs at the former McClellan Air Force Base in California said they won’t be making any changes.

 

“We’re going to stay exactly as we were,” said retired Chief Master Sgt. George Moses, president of the McClellan Chiefs Group. “We don’t feel we’re doing anybody an injustice in any way, shape or form. We wouldn’t do that.”

 

Moses is concerned that giving up the images used by the chiefs could mark the beginning of a lot of changes. American Indian symbols and icons are found throughout the Air Force, including on official images. These include the patches of 8th Flying Training Squadron at Vance Air Force Base, Okla., and the highly decorated 335th Fighter Squadron — the Chiefs — of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. There also is the Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s air demonstration team.

 

“We are very concerned about that, because once it starts, where does the ball stop rolling?” he asked.

 

Beginning with pins

 

The Air Force chief master sergeant’s identification with tribal leaders of American Indians — principally the Plains Indian tribes — began in the 1960s, when the Air Force Sergeants Association began awarding small, silver chief-head pins to newly appointed senior enlisted advisers, according to Murray. When an NCO made chief, the top rung of

the enlisted ladder, the association presented him with a gold version of the pin.

 

Over the years, Air Force chiefs became closely identified with American

Indian tribal chiefs traditions and symbols.

 

According to current tradition, when an airman makes chief, family or colleagues might present him or her with a certificate bearing the likeness of an American Indian chief in war bonnet, or a statuette or bust of an American Indian chief. Maybe the chief gets another when departing one base for another, and another still for some other event.

Murray speculates that Midwest Trophy, an Oklahoma-based company that makes many of the items chiefs receive, probably has earned a great  deal of money selling the busts as gifts to Air Force chiefs.

 

Murray, at home, has half a dozen busts or more, but in his office he keeps only a single statuette that was presented to him when he made chief. Nothing else in his office connects his job with anything American Indian.

 

But he concedes that some chiefs have gone to extremes in trying to  draw a parallel between their Air Force rank and anything American Indian.

 

In one chief’s office, he said, he counted “no fewer than 38 Native American symbols,” including busts, statuettes, dream-catchers and more.

 

“He had a six-foot Indian — a ‘cigar store’ Indian — standing in the corner,” Murray said. This kind of display is clearly over the top, he said, though Murray said he understands how and why Air Force chiefs made the connection to American Indian chiefs: the virtues ascribed to the tribal leaders — courage, integrity, dignity and honor — are embraced by Air Force chief master sergeants.

 

Air Force Brig. Gen. LaRita A. Aragon, commander of the Oklahoma Air National Guard, is an American Indian who takes the Air Force chiefs’ identification with American Indian chiefs as a compliment, as she does the service’s official use of American Indian symbols.

 

“I personally take no offense to it,” she said. “The logo for the Oklahoma Air National Guard is a chief’s head with his bonnet.  We have it on the tails of both our C-130s and F-16s.

 

“I take it as a way to honor our warrior spirit. But I know there are many Native Americans who feel it is belittling, and I personally don’t feel that way.”

 

Chuck Tsinnie, an Air Force retiree of Navaho descent, said it makes no difference how well intended is the use of American Indian icons or images.

 

“I’ve always been told by the chiefs and people I worked with that they’re just showing some kind of respect. And I really do believe that many of the chief master sergeants [feel that way],” he said.

 

But it’s an honor that many American Indians, including Tsinnie, would take a pass on.

 

Questionable honors

 

“Regardless of how you use that when you use an ethnic image to depict something, it’s wrong. ... I don’t want people to infringe on my culture and connect it to the Air Force,” said Tsinnie, who retired as a senior master sergeant in 1991 after nearly three decades in the service.

 

Tsinnie, who now works as a marketing illustrator for services squadron at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., said he tried throughout his career to discourage the use of Indian images.

 

As an illustrator for the Air Force, he created certificates that included American Indian symbols. These did not bother him initially, he said, but once overseas, he was routinely approached by NCOs and officers to lend Indian drums or headdress so they could use them during base football games. After he complained, he said, his base commander

halted the practice.

 

“My true impression of the chief master sergeant is, I’m very proud of them. I respect the rank as a chief master sergeant in the Air Force and not as a chief as in American Indian chief,” he said. “I just want to make sure everybody understands that. After all, I spent 28 years in [the Air Force].”

 

Lindsey Watchman, another Air Force veteran and former official with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, said honor is what should compel the Air Force chiefs to stop using American Indian symbols.

 

“Almost every tribe goes out of its way to revere veterans,” said the former senior airman, “and for that reason, the Air Force is always properly displayed [at events].

  Now, vice versa, if it is a nonIndian wearing Indian regalia, it’s automatically going to cause at least a second glance, especially among our elders.”

 

Being an Air Force chief is a title, he said, but being an American Indian chief carries high ceremonial significance.

 

And it’s not just imagery that can cause offense. Some note that Air Force chiefs have held induction ceremonies in which they have worn eagle-feathered war bonnets. In such situations, what the Air Force chiefs think is honoring American Indians crosses over to sacrilege instead.

 

Matthew Richter of Kansas, whose mixed-American Indian heritage includes

Cherokee, said the eagle feather has religious significance in some American Indian traditions as “a primary item of communication with the Great Spirit.”

 

“The eagle feather itself is kind of like a [Christian] cross,” Richter said.

 

That point was also made by Watchman. In some traditions, Watchman said, because the eagle flies the highest of all birds, it is considered the vehicle that bears prayers to the Creator.

 

Gauging the response

 

Murray said he has seen some progress in separating from the traditions. The chiefs groups of the National Capital area, Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., have stopped using American Indian logos, as has the Langley Air Force Base, Va., chiefs group, where Chief Master Sgt. H. Layton Clark said the group

held only one or two discussions on the matter before deciding to retire the symbols.

 

“A member of a local tribe here in Tidewater [Virginia] made mention  of” the issue, Clark said. The group decided that the image was not so important to the group that it was worth offending anyone, and so they dropped it.

 

“We ate a fairly good-sized chunk of inventory and decided to do it immediately rather than let that stuff [stay around],” he said.

 

But in California, where a large retiree population has enabled the McClellan chiefs group to carry on even after the base has closed, that group — the only one made up entirely of retirees — decided after discussing Murray’s April letter that it would not change its practices.

 

“It was the consensus of the group that Chief Murray was being overly concerned and that the letter was unfounded and unnecessary,” the group noted in the minutes of its May 19 meeting.

 

Murray said the last thing he wants is to stir up differences between chiefs groups, particularly the retired chiefs, who did so much in establishing and developing the job of chief. Nor does he intend to order active-duty chiefs to quit using American Indian symbols or imagery, as some do even on their business cards, so long as they’re

Not using taxpayer money to make them.

 

“I’m not going to forbid it,” he said. “It’s not my place to do so.”

 

But clearly Murray’s letter has made an impression. Chief Master Sgt. Randy Roth, the Security Forces Manager for the 355th Security Forces Squadron of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., recently moved a ceramic American Indian statue and chief-head bust from the shelf in his office to a closet.

 

Even before Murray’s memo, Davis-Monthan’s chiefs group voted to distribute ceramic chevrons instead of chief-head busts at the last chief promotion ceremony in January.

 

“If it offends anyone, then absolutely, we shouldn’t do it,” he said. “We defend freedom. We don’t want to offend anybody.”

 

When the items are gone, he said, “I’ll replace them with Harley [Davidson] stuff. So far I haven’t heard anything negative about Harley stuff.”

 

EDITORIAL:

 

Symbols can be abused

 

 

Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Gerald Murray was right to change therules regarding the use of American Indian symbols in conjunction with the E-9 chevron.

 

Still, this new policy falls short.

 

Senior enlisted airmen may have had honorable intentions when they combined Indian chief headdresses with their Air Force chief chevrons.

 

Many American Indians, however, don’t see this as an honor, but as cultural exploitation. Some even see the use of eagle feathers and headdresses as sacrilegious.

 

Indian religious symbols should be treated with the same respect as the Christian cross, the Star of David or any other religious symbol. This holds true not only for the chiefs groups that use the headdresses, but also for the 335th Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. The “Chiefs,” as they are known, also have the distinction of  being the world’s leading MiG killers — let that become their new logo.

 

This policy also should extend to the 8th Flying Training Squadron at Vance Air Force Base, Okla. Its cartoon image of an American Indian — complete with a single feather and tomahawk — is stereotypical and degrading.

 

That’s not to say the U.S. military and American Indian heritage are mutually exclusive. The Air Force Thunderbirds do an admirable job of honoring both. The unit selected a mythical American Indian legend, not a religious symbol, and has been careful to appropriately display that heritage. Indeed, American Indians have commended the unit for this

effort.

 

Murray’s new rule rightly stops airmen from using taxpayer dollars to buy items that contain American Indian symbols, but it does not stop them from displaying these items. In fact, Murray has an American Indian statue in his Pentagon office, given to him when he was promoted to chief.

 

It’s time the Air Force truly honored the heritage of American Indians. To do this, it must stop using their religious symbols, and stop presenting American Indians in degrading ways.