It was an awesome experience

Editor,

I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to the Veterans Warrior Society for including me in their operations during the powwow this year in Arlee. Also I have to say thank-you to the powwow committee and staff for making me feel so welcome and apart of all the proceedings. The opportunity to play the bagpipes for the veterans and all of you was a high point in my life and I thank-you so much for including me and allowing me to share a talent and contribute to such a worthy and important event.

As a retired Air Force veteran, it was a moving, never to be forgotten experience for me . It was also a distinct pleasure and opportunity to do something probably never done before with a drum group and I thank the Porcupine singers for assisting me.

The Veterans honoring was a moving and fitting tribute to our warriors past and present and should be an encouragement to those in the future. It is sad in a way to realize that as long as mankind is here we will have more veterans.

But the friendship and hospitality experienced by myself at this year's powwow shows me that there is always hope. I love this area and this reservation. It is my home and I felt very much at home at the community of powwow attendants that forms every year in Arlee at this time of season. I see a bright and wholesome future for us all that live here and pray everyday that God will smile on us, and bind us all together, and purify our communities and families from all negative impacting influences from abroad and protect us from harm in body and spirit.

Again thank-you for an awesome life fulfilling experience and I look forward to many more as does my whole family.

James Pettit

Ronan