U.S. Military Veterans Bow to Chief Leonard Crow Dog to Beg ‘Forgiveness’

An estimated 500 military veterans took bended knees and bowed heads before Chief Leonard Crow Dog at a “forgiveness ceremony” at the Four Prairie Knights Casino and Resort on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation this week.

And among those adopting the begging tone was none other than Wesley Clark, Jr., the son of famed retired U.S. Army general Wesley Clark, Sr., who also served as supreme commander of NATO.

The “forgiveness ceremony,” as it was dubbed, was aimed at giving U.S. military members opportunity to atone for past generations’ actions against Native Americans.

It also came as a celebratory salute to Sunday’s Standing Rock protesters’ successful stop of construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

As the Huffington Post reported, leading Native American Leonard Crow Dog formally granted forgiveness to Clark.

From the news outlet:

“This was a historically symbolic gesture forgiving centuries of oppression against Natives and honoring their partnership in defending the land from the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“Chief Leonard Crow Dog offered forgiveness and urged for world peace, responding that ‘we do not own the land, the land owns us.’”

Well, actually – the philosophy of the United States of America, which was built on Judeo-Christian principles and the idea that rights come from God, not government, holds that humans own land.

Clark’s apology to the Native-Americas, was published by Salon:

“Many of us, me particularly, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land and then we took your children and then we tried to make your language and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you, and the Creator gave you. We didn’t respect you, we polluted your Earth, we’ve hurt you in so many ways but we’ve come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.”

The ceremony, according to the Blaze, was emotional, with many crying while Native-Americans offered blessings of sage for those “water protectors” who helped resist the construction of the Dakota Pipeline.