The Storyteller - Truman Anquoe (Kiowa) Part 1

0:00There were landmines, bobwar, personnel mines, and attack mines that when you touch when a trip that exploded in German Aedes, they were shelling us on a beach, but me being a combat medic, them snipers didn't shoot at me because I had a cross on my arm. Men be falling all around me, I go on standing there. Thy good day, welcome my friends to The Storyteller, where you'll find first nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation. On today's program, we'll hear from a kaiwa elder and war war to vet who has faced many challenges in his life, some of them very painful, ones that perhaps you can relate to. Send us for this first part of Truman en Cue's story. I was born in a T.P., my mother was in labor when we went to church camp meeting at Redstone

1:08Baptist Church. My grandfather was a member, he was a deacon there, and they took me to church there and they put up a camp, it was in the winter, it was cold and it was snowy, there they couldn't find a doctor that bring me into this world. But there was an Indian lady who knew how to bring babies into this world, so they went after and brought over here at the T.P., and they're right there on the campground on January 22nd, 1924, I was born, I was born feet first, they didn't know how this lady brought me out, they said she had to break one of my legs to bring me out, but somehow God spared me, had something for me to do, he spared me. Our Indians were given to us by our grandparents, the certain character you have that the name

2:10you, with the name you that name, you have to live with that name the rest of your life, you live by it, it's a priority in your life, a good life, like me I became a Christian, but my name was Carl Ball. When the Indians used to fight against one another up there and we was up there in Montana in the Black Hills, there was a large river by there, there's Carl War and Sue's, they got in the fight, a war party, only two of them were left. One of my great-grandfathers and one Sue, so the Sue, he ran and jumped in the river, and my great-grandfather jumped in the river, and he killed the Sue guy in a water, so my name is swimming after Carl Ball, it's given to me and I've known that name, I didn't know my name was Truman, I knew it was Carl Ball, and I did with it, I tried to keep it

3:15with respect, I never tried to degrade my name. My father's father's name was Angu, he was a wise man, he's one of the keeper of the maps of the family story on Buckskin, every year he'd put a drawing on her, and they call him Angu, he was wise, intelligent, he's kind of like a counselor, so the name of Angu, so when they enrolled the Indians, they didn't know how to spell Angu, they didn't know how to spell it, so it's close to comfort, Angu, A and Q, O, E, that's how my name is in the government book, A, U, N, Q, O, E, Angu, Angu, that's my name, but from my brother went into the service, he was a famous boxer, his name was always in the paper, but he's

4:15one that changed his name to N, Q, it's easier to announce, so I started using N, Q, so all of my cousins started using the word N, Q, that Angu, just to feel, that name Angu, we're known as Angu, now all over the state, today I'm Truman Angu, I grew up in a traditional home where we put our tribal ways first, my name was given to him, my great-grandmother, she was very traditional, her grandfather was one of the greatest chiefs among the Cowals, and his name was Gully E, he's a protector for the Cowals where they lived, but through her I started my life in living our traditional ways, Powas, war dancing, round dancing, 49's, a camp, camping in family groups, I learned all that, and that was my

5:20life, but my aunt and her husband and my, another aunt and my, her father, they'd take us to Sunday school, that's why I started learning about the Bible, and my dad would go to dances, he won't take us where to go himself, we camp at these meetings, because he's always invited because he has a good singer around the drum, and they'd treat him good, you know, they gave him things, but somehow my mother, she stuck to the Bible, there was one summer, a place called Rainy Mountain Baptist Church that had vacation Bible school, and my parents were little reluctant to sent me, my dad, especially my dad, because he belonged to the Purity Regent, among our Cowal people, but I went on anyway, and thanks to the teachers,

6:25thanks to the teachers at our Bible school, they told me about Jesus, after I became where I could think, my child was way so beautiful, I started going that way, and there I learned how to drink, smoke, I learned about sex and women, I got in trouble because I was strong, so that school could put up with me because I'd be a bully, I'm a little bit of their children, so they made me leave, so they sent me to a boarding school, and with the boarding school, it's just like an army, you've marched, everything you did, everything you did, you did perfect, fix your bed, hang up your clothes, we learned how to do all of that, there one of the top priorities was doing away with my language, they punish us when we spoke

7:29our language, they whip us or they put coast pins or tongues and put a bucket for our saliva would go in that bucket, it was standing for maybe two hours, when we spoke cowal, it would talk cowal, they punish us, they whip us, so right now I started, I learned English, I knew nothing but cowal, there was school with every tribe in Western Oklahoma, where students there, we all grew up together, my father and mother's marriage was unstable because he was a good man, he believed in God, he prayed, but even prayers cannot get you to heaven, or Jesus can get you to heaven, but one time my dad chased me, chased me away from home because he was going to attack my mother, and I picked up a stick, piece of wood, wood stole wood, and I was going to hit him with it, he knew it, he commanded me to leave his

8:33house and never come back so I went, I joined the CC camp, there got to control of my life, he put me an army, there I was able to help myself, also I was able to help my dad who was not working, I sent him so much of my check, the government matched it, I bought bombs, and through that they were able to live through the war, in 1942 I went off the war, war worked to in Germany, and I became a combatant medic, I could have gone, gone in infantry, but I, I thought I didn't believe in killing so I got in a medical corps, but even when I was in the servers I still turned to my tribal ways to guide me and to direct me, and to help me through the bad parts of life,

9:37and when I went to South Wales, there I was assigned to the British commandos and the US Rangers, and there we trained, we were trained, one day we got on some boats, there were so many boats we couldn't count them, the water was real high, the waves were high and the ships couldn't hardly move, and there was so much mist in the air that we didn't know where we were going, the German Air Force could not attack us, but they could keep going, pretty soon our chip stopped, and we got off and got into some, they call it LCIs, landing craft infantry, from there we landed on D-Day on Omaha Beach, Green Beach, in southern France, when we went to the shore we could see the bombing of beaches with shells,

10:48and I hit the ground, they've got by me, I was supposed to tag them, killed an accident, a wounded accident, I was supposed to tag them, so they identified and glorified their relatives through that, so I tagged this man, this boy, he was Northern Indian, he was from Wisconsin, I think I forgot his name, but the first person I landed by was an American Indian on D-Day, so I stated in full hall, I thought about his parents, I just loved ones, and I still remember his face today, there was thousands of men killed to secure that beach, American soldiers, and we were sent in on a second wave to look for the wounded and to treat them, and if their pain would give them a shot of morphine and where the collecting station

11:51would collect all these wounded men, then the Navy's Navy came in with boats, LCI's, we loaded them on these wounded guys, and there were hundreds of them on these landing crafts, they took them to a hospital ship, that was most gruesome things I've ever saw in my life, there were land mines, bob war, personnel mines, anti-tank mines, that when he touched when the trip that exploded and germinated through a shell in us on a beach, but me being a combat medic, them snipers didn't shoot at me because I had a cross on my arm, men be falling all around me, I go on standing there. As a medic, Truman was no stranger to death, but if you think about it, none of us are. Have you ever wondered where death came from? God tells us in his word, therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and through sin came death,

12:54so also death spread to all humanity because every person has sinned. He also says it is appointed to me and wants to die, but after this, the judgment. Why judgment? Because God is holy, the penalty for sin must be paid, but did you know that God offers forgiveness and life through His Son, Jesus Christ? His death on the cross satisfied God's judgment for anyone who will put their trust in Him. And that includes you. If you would like to know more, please visit our website withoutreservation.com and click on the tab New Life. You can also write to us at the storyteller P.O. Box 1001 Bemidji, Minnesota 56619. That's P.O. Box 1001 Bemidji, Minnesota 56619. Our phone number is 877-766-4648.

13:59You can also find us on Facebook at withoutreservation. Want to take the storyteller with you? Be sure to download our app. Thanks for listening and remember the greatest story took place at the cross. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There's more to Truman's story, so be sure to join us again next time as we listen to the storyteller.