Veteran Sam Deering

The veteran Sam Deering worked for the US navy, but he ended his career in the army three years ago. Deering is from Virginia resident but the last months he have been participating with the demonstrators in north dakota with the group “veterans stand for standing rock”. He says that he got inspired to join the Dakota access pipeline protest after watching the events unfold. He stopped working for the navy three years ago and told himself that he would never go back because he wanted peace for himself and his close ones. When he heard about how the police was working illegally with protecting the Energy Transfer Partners drilling of the Missouri River, he felt like he had to do something so he joined the “ veterans stand for standing rock”. The students from Rothaugen got the opportunity to ask veteran Sam Deering Questions in the facebook group “cooperations across the globe”, but unfortunately he hasn't had the chance to answer them yet.

The standing rock protest is about the government in Dakota wanting to build a pipeline for transporting oil, the pipeline was planned to cross holy ground for the

Native americans and the drinking water for a lot of people in Dakota. If the pipeline gets damaged the drinking water will be polluted and the water will be ruined. A lot of people is against this, especially the native americans. The last month there have been a lot of demonstrations against the Dakota access pipeline.

This is a picture of veteran Sam Deering.

We asked some questions to him, and he answered. Q stands for question and A stands for answer. These are some of them:

Q: Hello, Sam! My name is Marte. I think it is very brave of you to stand up for the Native Americans, but my question is, what made you commit to protest and why did you want to protest?

A: Hey Marte, during my last couple years in the military, I slowly realized that I wasn't the good guy in the wars we were fighting, and that I really needed to reevaluate what it was that was important to me. Our environment has to be protected, and I know that if I can't commit my time to taking action when needed, how can I expect anyone else to? I believe Native Americans need to be respected, their land honored, and their traditions allowed to flourish. Much of our history in America is a lie, and we are afraid to tell many of our most important stories, like our treatment of the native americans. So I saw this as an opportunity to add my voice to the protection of Earth, the protection of our native population, against the rampant use of violence by our police, and against the abuses of power of many corporations in this country and around the world.

Q: Hey Sam Deering my name is Christopher Conti. I was wondering why you think the Army corps of engineers are so afraid of US veterans, and why they are more afraid of them protesting against standing rock than other grups of people.

A: I don't think they feared us veterans nearly as much as they did the negative media attention they would receive standing against us. We were and are committed to nonviolent direct action, so they need not fear us on a physical level, so the fear us on a social level. Any footage of a veteran being beaten, or gassed, or shot, would have been devastating to their efforts, so they avoided us to avoid further public opinion slipping away from them. I hope that answers your question.

We learned a lot about veteran Sam Deering's experiences when we asked him questions. We learned a lot about his personal experience, that we couldn't had gotten to know in any other way.

This post is written by Sarah.