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Woodrow Keeble was born in Waubay, SD, on this date in
1917. During his lifetime, he fought in two wars and – with all his
medals and awards combined – is reportedly the most decorated soldier
in North Dakota history.
Keeble’s parents were from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe. His
parents were poor; his mother died early, and his father, Isaac, enrolled
Woody in the Wahpeton Indian School so he could get three good meals a
day. After Keeble graduated, he worked at the school and made a name for
himself pitching baseball. In fact, the White Sox were recruiting him
when he was called to action in World War II. His first battle took place
on the island of Guadalcanal on October 13, 1942; he was in Co. I of the
North Dakota 164th Infantry.
Keeble’s stepson, Russell Hawkins, explains what the 164th faced
at Guadalcanal: “The Japanese had not been defeated,” he says.
“They’d gone through Burma, they’d gone through China,
they’d gone through everybody in their way. They were hardened, they
were seasoned, and they were a war machine. And through generations, their
code of conduct was, ‘to die is glorious.” You never run, you
never retreat, you die with honor. No matter what the odds were, no matter
what the enemy, you stood your ground and you fought ‘til you died
with your sword. And so that was the enemy you were against at Guadalcanal
– the Japanese Imperial Marines.”
Keeble later reflected on his reaction to that battle: “Before I
experienced the horror of that attack,” he wrote, “I was quick
to call coward or yellow anyone who showed fear under any circumstances.
Nevermore. I don’t know these things, but they speak truth to one.
I am not a psychologist, nor a statistician, and less of a philosopher;
but the depth of emotion, the dreads of fear, the referees of horrors,
and the concentration of self that led me to make this observation, the
fear impulse, or perhaps, better said, the (impulses caused) by fear,
are stronger, more demanding than either that of love or hunger...
“Fear in my opinion is a state of drunkenness,” he wrote. “And
when men are in that state when the fear impulse takes a hold... he loses
all reason, sense of values, and is not liable, or at least should not
be held accountable for acts perpetrated when thus possessed.
“During the 13 months,” Keeble continued, “(in the) almost
continual and sustained combat in which I have ever participated, there
were moments, and rare ones, I am sure; but they lose none of their terror
or horror for which fear laid a relentless and a powerful hold on me,
that the pull of cowardice was almost more than I could ward off. There
were terrible moments that encompassed a lifetime, an endlessness, when
terror was so strong in me, that I could feel idiocy replace reason. (Yet,)
I have never left my position, nor have I shirked hazardous duty. Fear
did not make a coward out of me.”
James Fenelon, a Standing Rock Sioux, fought shoulder-to-shoulder with
Keeble at Guadalcanal and said, “The safest place to be was right
next to Woody. I don’t know how many rounds he carried, but he had
bandoliers on each shoulder. His gun just never stopped – no matter
where you were there were Japanese. He was unbelievable.”
“For meritorious achievement in ground operations against the enemy,”
Keeble was awarded his first Bronze Star and Purple Heart at Guadalcanal.
It was just the beginning of a long and distinguished career – one
we’ll be revisiting...
Sources: Sota Iya Ye Yapi, May 28, 1997 and March 20, 2002; Elijah Black
Thunder, Norma Johnson, Larry O’Connor, Muriel Pronovost, Ehana Woyakapi:
History and Culture of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota
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prior permission from North Dakota Public Radio.
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