Major Brian Shul, USAF (Ret.) SR-71 Blackbird ‘Speed Check’
In this talk at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Vietnam-era attack pilot and retired Air Force major Brian Shul, author of “Sled Driver: Flying the World’s Fastest Jet,” reveals fascinating details of piloting the SR-71. Using his rare aviation slides and stories as a vehicle, he tells a broader inspired story of hope, overcoming obstacles and daring to dream.
Wesley “Wes” Studi (Cherokee: ᏪᏌ ᏍᏚᏗ) (born December 17, 1947)
Wes Studi, Vietnam
His own bio says he enlisted:
“Wes joined the U.S. Army and while stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, stories from returning Vietnam War veterans set his blood on fire. With only 12 months of his six-year service left, Wes volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served one tour in South Vietnam with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta, living his own future war stories. At one point his company was pinned down in the Mekong Delta – and nearly killed – by friendly fire.”
Was there anything particularly memorable that you experienced that really stuck with you?
WS: Yeah. I’ve told this story before … I served with the 9th Division in the Delta area of South Vietnam and … {Laughs} Actually, I remember a number of things, but one thing that has stayed with me is that I think government policy sort of really entailed a lot of things … a very good memory, as well, because, at one time … First of all, there were only three of us, in my entire company, that were Native American. One day, the three of us found out that, for no particular reason, we had the day off. And everybody else, more or less, had gone off on this mission to do something … I don’t know, whatever it was that they told us, really, ‘You guys just go and take the day off’.
We found out the next day what the mission had been. It was to go in and relocate an entire small town. A village, I guess you’d call it, a small village, but … They went in with very long helicopters … I forget what you call them …with this huge net, spread them out, and told the entire village to put all their belongings in there. So they loaded up and moved them all to a different area and told them this was their home now. The only thing that I can of course equate to that was the fact of the removal that we, as Cherokees had… and these other guys probably had similar things as well … So, I figure that the Army and the U. S. Government, either by mistake or a darn good memory, gave us the day off. Make sense to you?
Wesley “Wes” Studi
Wesley “Wes” Studi (Cherokee: ᏪᏌ ᏍᏚᏗ) (born December 17, 1947) is a Cherokee actor and film producer from Nofire Hollow in Oklahoma.[1] He has won critical acclaim and awards for his portrayal of Native Americans in film.[2][3] He has appeared in Academy Award-winning films, such as Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992), and in the Academy Award-nominated films Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and The New World (2005). He is also known for portraying Sagat in Street Fighter (1994). Other films he’s appeared in are Heat, Mystery Men, Avatar, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and the television series Penny Dreadful.
Early life and education
Studi was born Wesley Studi in a Cherokee family in Nofire Hollow, Oklahoma, a rural area in Tahlequah named after his mother’s family.[4] He is the son of Maggie Studie, a housekeeper, and Andy Studie, a ranch hand.[5] Until he attended grade school, he spoke only Cherokee at home.[6] He attended Chilocco Indian Agricultural School for high school and graduated in 1964; his vocational major was in dry cleaning.[7] In 1967, Studi was drafted into the Army and served 18 months in Vietnam. After his discharge, Studi became politically active in American Indian activism. He participated in the Wounded Knee Incident at Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973.[6]
Career
Studi appeared in his first film, The Trial of Standing Bear, in 1988.[4] He is best known for his roles as ruthless Native American warriors, such as a Pawnee in Dances with Wolves (1990), and Magua in The Last of the Mohicans (1992).[6][8] A year later, he was cast with Eric Schweig for TNT’s film The Broken Chain, about the historic Iroquois League that was based in the area of central and western present-day New York state. It was shot in Virginia. This was part of a group of productions shown over 14 months on TNT as its “Native American initiative”, including three television movies and several documentaries. A six-hour history series was told from a Native American perspective.[3] In 1993 Studi had the lead in Geronimo: An American Legend.[9] He showed a talent for comedy as the superhero Sphynx in the 1999 film Mystery Men.
In 2002, Studi brought to life the character of Lt. Joe Leaphorn, for a series of PBS movies based on Tony Hillerman’s novels set in the Southwest among the Navajo and Hopi. It was produced by Robert Redford. In 2005, Studi portrayed a character based on chief Opechancanough, leader of the Powhatan Confederacy in Virginia, in the film The New World directed by Terrence Malick. On April 20, 2009 Studi appeared as Major Ridge, a leader of the Cherokee before removal to Indian Territory, in Trail of Tears. This was the third of five episodes in the PBS series We Shall Remain, portraying critical episodes in Native American history after European encounter,[10] part of the public television’s acclaimed series American Experience, where Studi spoke only in native Cherokee. In 2009, Studi appeared in James Cameron’s science fiction epic Avatar. He played Eytukan, the chieftain of a Na’vi tribe.
Personal life
After his studies, he taught Cherokee language and syllabary and helped found a Cherokee-language newspaper. He went into ranching. After his first marriage ended in divorce, Studi left ranching and started to study acting – a friend had recommended it as a place to meet women.[3] Studi married again – he and his wife Maura Dhu Studi moved their family to a farm near Santa Fe, New Mexico in the early 1990s.[3] They have a son, Kholan. Studi has a daughter, Leah, and a son, Daniel, from his first marriage.[11] Studi and his wife perform in the band “Firecat of Discord”. More recently, in Santa Fe, Studi serves as honorary chair of the national endowment campaign of the Indigenous Language Institute.[4]
Honors
1994, Won a Western Heritage Award (shared with cast and crew) for Geronimo: An American Legend (1993).[9]
1998, The Dreamspeakers Film and Festival honored Studi with its Career Achievement Award.[4]
2000, Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Golden Boot Award.[4]
2000, Artist of the Decade at the First Americans in the Arts Awards.[4]
2005, The New World was nominated for an Academy Award.
2013, Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers – Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma City, OK
Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson’s administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s brilliant ‘whiz kids’ tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.
Thomas Sowell
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
Herbert Hoover
War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.
John McCain
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
Barack Obama
As a combat veteran, I know the cost of war.
I am a military police officer and I have served on two deployments; my first was to Iraq, in a medical unit, and my second deployment was to Kuwait, as a military police platoon leader.
Tulsi Gabbard
It is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy so that it is not fought on U.S. soil.
Chester W. Nimitz
I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.
Walter Dean Myers
His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.
USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Alnic MC, Aug. 21.
Forgotten feminist icons of the French military, the Vivandières, alternatively known as cantinières, was the French title for women attached to military units who sold wine to the troops and offered better cuisine on the battlefield than the army could offer. An often overlooked part of women’s and….. 
The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.
Richard M. Nixon
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
Leo Tolstoy
You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
Napoleon Bonaparte
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Sun Tzu
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
Douglas MacArthur
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams
I grew up in a time when people believed in duty, honor and country. My grandfathers were both officers. My father was a General in the Air Force. My brother and I were both in the Army. I’ve always felt a kinship with soldiers; I think it’s possible to support the warrior and be against the war.
Kris Kristofferson
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
Ulysses S. Grant
If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man’s intelligence and his comprehension… would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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