Armed with prayer

A Diné veteran’s journey to Standing Rock

WINDOW ROCK

Tyann Nakai expected to stand arm-in-arm in peaceful protest, praying and becoming a human shield for the Dakota Access Pipeline protestors from potential rubber bullets and concussion grenades.

She was right on two things: She stood arm-in-arm and she prayed.

While on the front lines, she and the New Mexico Warriors – the name she and fellow New Mexico veterans she traveled with on Dec. 3 gave themselves – encountered no “non-lethal” tactics by police. The two-branch military veteran instead faced the brute North Dakota winter storm that brought gusting winds, bone-chilling temperatures, and blowing snow.

For three hours, Nakai, originally from Lupton, Arizona, and 14 other veterans stood side-by-side, with arms interlocked, and held their position. Their instructions were simple, she said: to keep anyone, including the very people she came to protect, from getting onto the Backwater Bridge.

It was the same bridge where, on early Monday morning, Nov. 21, activists and police guarding the road that led to where pipeline constructions workers were busy at work, had clashed.

Videos of police heaving canisters of tear gas at protestors (see related story on Page 3), and rivulets of water shot from water cannons were live-streamed on social media. The next morning, Nakai said she heard the news. Her Facebook newsfeed was filled with images of people being hit by water cannons and tear gas.

Nakai said the oath she took twice — to defend the Constitution of the United States against foreign and domestic enemies — along with anger and disappointment filled her mind. The images inspired her to stop talking and take action. Duty was calling, she said.

And take action she did. Nakai said she began calling other veterans to organize a trip to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. She had heard of another group, the “Veterans Stand for Standing Rock,” establishing itself.

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