BY: DOUG GEORGE-KANENTIIO

INDIAN TIME - Vol. 23 #44 - Kentenko:wa / November 3, 2005 Edition - Page 3

On October 31 a contingent of Native people were escorted to France to commemorate the contributions of Aboriginal soldiers to the Canadian military during World War II.

Among those Nations who served with honor perhaps none did so in greater numbers than the Iroquois.

Visitors to the Six Nations Museum in Onchiota are able to read the names of the Iroquois men and women who took part in the war as members of the Canadian and American armed services. True to their heritage as Iroquois they fought with distinction and courage in every major battle from Dunkirk to the Battle of the Bulge.

Some died and are buried across the great salt waters, most made use of their ancestral survival skills and returned home to their communities only to be largely ignored by external agencies and service organizations.

Not until the past couple of years, when most Native veterans have passed on, has Canada acknowledged its shabby treatment of its Aboriginal soldiers by providing long overdue financial bonuses to their families and arranging for some of them to return to the killing grounds along the beaches of Normandy in western France.

By the time the western Allies had mustered sufficient forces to invade France the Russians had borne the greater part of the German land assualts, losing millions of lives after the first Nazi attack in June, 1941.

Joseph Stalin appealed to the Allies to relieve the burden his country was enduring by launching a second front in the west, which had been sidetracked by attacks in North Africa and southern Italy.

The Normandy invasion was the most massive seaborne landing of all time and took months to coordinate but occurred only after the Russians had forced the Germans to retreat from its territories beginning with the defense of Stalingrad in 1943.

Many Akwesaseronon were assigned to take part in the Normandy assault where their skills as marksmen and bravery under fire were put to the test.

My father, the late David Totkennion George was there as a private in the SD and G Highlanders, Third Canadian Army. He had joined the army in 1943 at 18 years of age, completed his basic training in Quebec and saw frontline action in North Africa, Sicily and Yugoslavia before being shipped to England to prepare for Normandy.

He spent months getting ready for D-Day, perfecting the use of his reliable .303 Enfield rifle. He was instructed as to how to disembark from a landing craft, wade through ocean swells and dash across beaches, which would be swept by hostile machinegun fire.

Totkennion, still a month away from his 19th birthday and a seasoned combat veteran, learned how to avoid the obvious dangers as his unit struck the beaches. His area was called "Juno" and was, in contrast to the beaches at Omaha and Utah, fairly level. He did not have to scale large cliffs but he was fired upon by highly trained German soldiers determined to drive the Canadians back into the Atlantic. My father respected the German soldiers who he said were good fighters but he, as Mohawk, was better.

Once he left the death zone at Juno my father was assigned to a special unit to hunt and kill German snipers. Sometimes left behind the retreating army the snipers made small nests in any elevated building or hill where they would cause considerable havoc among the invading troops.

To track, stalk and kill these snipers required patience, stealth, coolness and expertise with a high-powered rifle. My father had these traits so it was his job to clear a given area of the German sharpshooters.

Totkennion acknowledged without shame, doubt or undue pride his actions as a soldier. He followed through with his orders, was fired upon, saw his friends die and returned better than he received. He set up ambushes and acted as a scout, crawling far ahead of his own frontlines to call in artillery strikes on German units.

Totkennion marched from Juno to Germany, fighting in France, Belgium, Holland. He was awarded medals for his bravery but gave those citations little consideration. He never sought formal recognition for his service but neither did he wallow in self-pity.

As a Mohawk he kept his emotions, particularly his fears, in check throughout his wartime experiences. He was present when the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders liberated death and concentration camps once they entered Germany then stayed in that country for another year after the German surrender in May, 1945.

Totkennion finally returned to Ain late 1946 having acquired an understanding of the German language, which, he said, he spoke so often as to replace Mohawk in his thinking.

Totkennion had many stories to tell about life in the Canadian Army. He spoke of only one instance of racism in his unit of an episode so terrible as to cost the life of a fellow soldier.

My father was fired upon by another Canadian and had no choice but to take that soldier's life for which he was exonerated but that was the one instance when he felt regret for something he had done.

Totkennion re-integrated himself into the Akwesasne community, working as a master mason for many years before his passing on December 6, 1994. He enjoyed his social life at the American Legion and was also a member of the Canadian Legion in Cornwall. He was able to put his weapons aside without hesitation. I know he would have liked to have returned to Europe, to walk along Juno beach before heading inland. He would have been quiet in his reflections and respectful of those who died on the sandy shores and beyond. He would have been pleased Canada was finally in a place where it was extending a collective gratitude for what he and thousands of others had done there.