In a few days it will be the 128th anniversary of the ‘Battle of Little Bighorn.’
Today I stood at the top of ‘Last Stand Hill” where in 1876, on another hot June afternoon, more than 260 soldiers under the command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer met their death at the hands of several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors
I wondered, as I took in the peaceful scene over the valley…is there a ‘memory’ in the air of rapid firing rifles and dust and the hoops of Indian war cries? Does the earth recall the drenching of its soil with blood? The Indians won the battle but lost their effort to keep their ancestral way of life…
Small white stones are scattered in many directions…among the waving grasslands. They each read “U.S. soldier 7th infantry fell here June 25, 1876.”
Custer’s marker, outlined in black, stands among one group on a lonely hilltop…