{"id":39454,"date":"2025-11-08T04:39:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/special-ops-warrior-credits-early-chickasaw-training-for-surviving-missions\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T04:40:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:40:00","slug":"special-ops-warrior-credits-early-chickasaw-training-for-surviving-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/special-ops-warrior-credits-early-chickasaw-training-for-surviving-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"Special ops warrior credits early Chickasaw training for surviving missions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Tech.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tech. Sgt. James Newberry<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Chickasaw veteran James Newberry credits what he learned at the feet of his great-grandfather, grandfather and father for the fact he and his troops survived top-secret military operations behind enemy lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we do, we honor those who came before us. If it weren\u2019t for their teaching, I don\u2019t think I would be here today,\u201d Newberry said. \u201cI\u2019m going to give my grandfather, great-grandfather and father all the credit, because I was raised hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though it was difficult, he now sees his youth from a different perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard at the time, but I didn\u2019t realize it was the best times,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the summer after school you took your shoes off, and you didn\u2019t get another pair until you went back to school. I never knew I was poor until I was told I was poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls his grandfather taking him into the woods near their home in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, to learn the Chickasaw ways that would serve him so well in the military.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still remember the day my grandfather took me down on Pennington Creek. It was dark, and my grandfather said, \u2018Close your eyes and don\u2019t talk unless I tell you to.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI sat there for the longest time, and he finally said, \u2018What do you feel?\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, I feel the air. It\u2019s cool and I\u2019ve got some bugs on me.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Keep your eyes closed. What do you smell?\u2019 It was the time of year I could smell the honeysuckle. I could smell the creek. \u2018He said, what do you hear?\u2019 I said, \u2018I hear birds. He said, \u2018No, what kind of birds? What are they saying?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe walked along and saw coon tracks. He was going over all the basic stuff. Most of it I knew but I didn\u2019t know why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much later, while serving overseas in the military, the lessons became clear. On patrol in the jungle, Newberry smelled the aroma of cigarettes emanating from enemy soldiers no one else in his unit perceived. By the narrow trail they came across he could tell a handful of enemy troops was close. Upturned leaves on a bush alerted him to a booby-trapped tripwire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a lot about nature, and I never lost a man,\u201d he said. \u201cI learned how to identify things.\u201d<\/p>\n

He instructed his troops to never take established trails, to walk five steps and stop to notice what they could smell, see and hear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a deer or a squirrel walk in the woods they walk or hop and then stop,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s for a reason. If you walked a trail or walked a road you\u2019re open to snipers and to booby traps. People did not like to go on patrol with me because I never took the easy way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a hero. I was using some of the things I learned as a little boy in Tishomingo from my granddad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newberry attended Texas A&M University on a track scholarship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day my uncle called me and said, \u2018Jimmy, get down to the recruiter \u2014 we\u2019re about to have a war (Vietnam), and no Newberry has ever been drafted, and you better not be the first one.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the Marine recruiter was out to lunch, and he ended up joining the Air Force.<\/p>\n

His athletic ability and education gained him the attention of higher-ups who wanted him to join the Army\u2019s 82nd Airborne Division.<\/p>\n

He admits he didn\u2019t acclimate especially well to military life, but there was an upside.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to eat three meals a day and started gaining weight. I put on so much weight I was twice the person I was when I went in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, his second parachute jump ended with a hurt ankle after which he transferred to the air cavalry. Upon being transferred to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, he learned he had been selected for a special group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I found out we were a mixed team consisting of the Marine Corps, the Army and the Air Force. Later on that group of guys became known as the Green Berets. And they said, \u2018You\u2019re going to go to Vietnam.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he ended up in Thailand as part of a Special Operations Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a forward air controller. My job was to carry a communications pack and direct artillery and airstrikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a two-person job, which involved a spotter who estimated distances.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy spotter had to know more than I did to do the distance calculations, to know what type of aircraft was coming and at what speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

His were top-secret missions about which Newberry says tongue-in-cheek, \u201cThey told me I wasn\u2019t there, and I wasn\u2019t going to be doing what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

His combat operations left lasting scars on his body and his psyche, and he admits he suffered a bout of post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got shot and stabbed too. I took a bullet in my shoulder that passed under my nose. You can still see the scars on the back of my hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody shot me in my radio pack. I felt something back there but didn\u2019t know what it was. I just knew my radio wouldn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty years later, he noticed a bump on his back and his doctor dug out a part of the dial on the radio he had been carrying on his back two decades earlier.<\/p>\n

An apparent toothache led to a doctor digging out a part of a bullet that had buried itself in his cheek.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was some of the brass from a bullet that had screwed itself all the way up into there. I had been walking around with that all those years. It wasn\u2019t a toothache,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Newberry\u2019s military career from 1962 to 1970 also saw him on missions in North Africa, Israel, Greece, Crete, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, Turkey, Cypress and Columbia, sometimes working with the CIA and the Strategic Air Command.<\/p>\n

Newberry turns 83 in November. He said his military experiences had definite upsides.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became an air traffic controller through the military. I saw Cleopatra\u2019s gates and traveled on the King\u2019s Highway. For a guy from Tishomingo, I saw things I could not believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the grace of God, I\u2019m still here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a privilege to serve my country and an honor to be a part of the Chickasaw Warrior Society and a former member of the Chickasaw Color Guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Special ops warrior credits early Chickasaw training for surviving missions<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Tech. Sgt. James Newberry Chickasaw veteran James Newberry credits what he learned at the feet of his great-grandfather, grandfather and father for the fact he and his troops survived top-secret military operations behind enemy lines. \u201cAs we do, we honor those who came before us. If it weren\u2019t for their <\/p>\n

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