{"id":23533,"date":"2025-02-14T18:07:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T01:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/suckla-sponsors-resolution-to-honor-native-american-veterans\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:37:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:37:45","slug":"suckla-sponsors-resolution-to-honor-native-american-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/suckla-sponsors-resolution-to-honor-native-american-veterans\/","title":{"rendered":"Suckla sponsors resolution to honor Native American veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Republican
Republican Rep. Larry Don Suckla, of Colorado House District 58, recently sponsored a resolution to honor Native veterans. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Colorado Rep. Larry Don Suckla recently co-sponsored a resolution to honor Native veterans for their service and sacrifice in defending our nation. It passed.<\/p>\n

Suckla, elected to District 58 seat in November, was a prime sponsor, alongside House Majority Leader Monica Duran. Sens. Cleave Simpson and Matt Ball were prime sponsors on the Senate side.<\/p>\n

In total, 94 legislators backed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a humbling experience to honor people who were here first,\u201d said Suckla.<\/p>\n

Last week, when the resolution passed, Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart and Southern Ute Chairman Melvin Baker visited Denver, and Suckla was asked to walk them down the center aisle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up with the Ute tribe. I went to school with them,\u201d Suckla said. \u201cSince I was born, we\u2019ve been lifelong friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so it was quite an honor to be part of it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize the indispensable contributions of Native Americans in advancing United States interests, military successes, and global stability, often as the U.S. government failed to fulfill its federal trust responsibility and protect tribal treaty rights, lands and resources,\u201d the resolution reads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For over 200 years, it said, Native Americans have \u201cserved with distinction in the United States military in every major conflict,\u201d earning medals and honors like Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and the Congressional Medal of Honor, to name a few.<\/p>\n

The resolution goes on to \u201chonor the disproportionately high military service, sacrifice and patriotism of Native American veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their contributions started during the Revolutionary War, when the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Tribes sent 600 soldiers to fight.<\/p>\n

In \u201cthe American Civil War, roughly 3,600 Native Americans served in the Union Army,\u201c the resolution remembers.<\/p>\n

More than 12,000 Natives served in World War I, \u201cdespite the fact that one-third of all Native Americans still had not been granted full citizenship by the United States government at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

During World War II, they had \u201cthe highest per capita contribution to the total war effort of any demographic group in the United States.\u201d More than a third of \u201cable-bodied Native American men between the ages of 18 and 50, and as much as 70 percent of certain tribal populations, served.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution also remembers the 400 Code Talkers, the 42,000 Native soldiers in the Vietnam War, the more than 10,000 in the Korean War and the roughly 31,000 Native Americans and Alaska Natives who are on active duty today.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir dedication to defending our nation, both past and present, deserves our deepest gratitude and respect,\u201d the Colorado House Republicans wrote in a Facebook post<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

three other legislators were prime sponsors, and it passed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78166,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23533\/revisions\/78166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23533"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}