You're watching a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

President John F Kennedy once said, that's not what your country can do for you.

Ask what you can do for your country.

Hi, and welcome to Dakota Life.

I'm going to be raw here in South Dakota.

There's no shortage of those willing to give for their country.

In this episode of Dakota Life, we're going to look at some of the creative ways our neighbors use their unique skills and talents to honor our country.

A since 1942, there's been a U.S.

War Department in Rapid City.

Today, we know it is Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Since what goes on inside the gates at Ellsworth, there's also the mystery to the civilians of our state.

One day a year, the base opens up the gates to allow the public inside.

It's the Dakota Thunder air show and South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

Stefanie Ressler had the opportunity to go inside the gates and capture the big day on camera.

When one thinks of the Ellsworth Air Force Base just outside of Rapid City, they often think of the men and women serving in the United States Air Force and the protection they provide to our country.

Or they think of the power of the B-1 bomber.

However, once a year, those men and women serving our country would also like you to know how important South Dakota is to Ellsworth.

Purpose of the air show is is twofold.

One is to let people come out here and see what we do at the base.

We show them things like our working dogs or an explosive ordnance disposal team.

So we have different demonstrations going on.

We let them see the airplanes and and talk to some of our military folks around here.

So there's better understanding in the community of what's going on on a day to day basis.

And also, the other reason that we have the air show is sort of our way to say thanks to the community, invited people out here for freedom.

Look at the airplanes, watch, watch airplanes fly demonstrations on here.

We've got a lot of civilian performers out here today.

I think it's a wonderful thing.

It actually gives the community a chance to see.

The military does out here.

They hear about a lot of it on the news, but being able to stand out here and watch, watch the planes go by and see the capabilities.

I'm sure it's very impressive for them.

And it also gives us a chance to give back to the community right behind us.

What do you call a B-1b Lancer?

It is a bomber, basically a long range supersonic, middle altitude type bomber.

And it's based on purpose.

When it was originally built was to fly a low level fly underneath the radar, flying fast.

And then it was actually built for nuclear purposes.

But over the past decade or so, we've actually transitioned to what we call conventional, where we can drop what you see behind me here, which, we have done bombs and we have what we call here, Jim, which are G.P.S.

guided bombs.

We transition from the nuclear phase to what we call a conventional phase.

And it's quite funny.

As soon as we open up back here, the air hatch, to be able to go up and see where the seats are in the cockpit.

You get a line, we pass the, the engines pass the tail, and then they'll stay for like an hour or two hours just to go out for a five minute, you know, look around the cockpit.

So yeah, there's quite a bit of excitement.

And some people come in, they won't know anything about the B-1 before, and they'll leave with all this knowledge and be like, oh, this is a cool plane.

A lot of people, you know, they're so used to the old workhorse of the B-52 that's been around so long in the B-2 because it's a stealth aircraft.

A lot of people don't know about the B-1.

But the thing is, you know, we have a large amount of fuel we can stay in, in an enemy territory for quite a while with that fuel to be able to bomb.

We also carry, as far as the GM goes, we carry more weight than the other two bombers in the United States.

We carry 24 of them, and they're 2,000 pound bombs.

So yeah, we can carry on some 84, 500 pound bombs.

So, you know, when you throw those numbers out, they're like, wow, here we have the mysterious, lightweight multi man satellite terminal.

Basically, we, take it out and set up long haul communications back to the United States, and we can support up to 1500 users, with telephones, computers, internet, things like that.

What we're doing down here is we're basically giving the community, idea of, what our capabilities are.

And disposal team, when we respond both on and off base to any type of, explosive incident, homemade bombs, old ordnance, with a lot of the World War Two veterans that are passing away.

Well, the families are fine old souvenirs they brought back from the war, so.

And they're not sure if they're alive or not.

So we'll go out, we'll check them out, and, they're still alive.

We will render them safe and safe.

We will take care of them.

So, they don't pose a hazard to the community.

The mini displays and demonstrations are interesting that the airship, titled Dakota Thunder, is what generates the most excitement among soldiers and civilians.

There's still fighter.

There's always a crowd favorite.

The F-117.

And, the B ones are very popular and, of course, when the Thunderbirds come and all the flying, everybody likes the whole airshow.

There's no center.

Let's watch Lufthansa and see.

Just.

Back.

Oh, right out of around one, two, three, four, 5000ft at a time.

He's upside down right now.

Because when this 450 horsepower Super Stearman, known as the big Red, not only turned some eyes, it turned a lot of heads straight up to the sun.

And now she pulls her way right back up here.

A rotor in a horizontally.

The sky is early, and then she comes into town for establishing a $40,000 hand in her.

Height.

Oh.

Most of the airshow allows pilots to showcase individual planes and what they can do.

However, there is one demonstration of a simulated surprise attack and dogfight routine with a P-51 gun fighter aircraft in the Japanese zero dogfight first started back during World War One, and the move was perfected back then.

Continue to be used even today.

They actually practiced the maneuvers that they use in the air, so very specifically, so this is a scripted a very scripted event for them.

And then they perform those events at the air or something that goes on for a while.

The planes are fun to watch, but they also provide a history lesson.

A squadron has their own set of ones, you know, approximately 12 or so aircraft.

And what we do is we, we we color coded, basically we say it's our own by putting a tail flash on it.

And you'll see the difference between the two aircraft is, like I said, belongs to the 37 Bomb Squadron, the Tigers and the the B-1.

Beside that belongs to the 34th Bomb Squadron, the Thunderbirds.

And we have the 34th and 37th have a history together.

The 34th and 37th were part of the Doolittle Raiders in 1942.

They went bombed, over Japan.

So we're back together again at Ellsworth.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next voice you're here will be the voice of United States Air Force 1840.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome once again to the podium.

Hundreds of great for what you're watching this demonstration from Air Combat Command 23rd Fighter.

This crew of one does an excellent job.

And demonstrating how this 51,000 pound plane that can reach speeds of 420mph, is designed for close air support against ground targets, including tanks and other armored vehicles.

There is no doubt Dakota Thunder is enjoyed by all.

The community once again shows its support by taking part in this spectacular event.

And folks.

Announcer.

Finally get a chance to say thank you.

And what a better way of doing it than with the roar of one of our most treasured planes.

Each year, Dakota Thunder welcomes close to 10,000 people to the airshow, and organizers expect the attendance to grow.

It's free to the public, and if you'd like more information on the airshow, visit us on the web at SD, PB, 4G.

In our next story, we're going to meet a man whose actions during World War Two has echoed through history.

62 years ago, he helped save the lives of American soldiers by speaking in his native tongue.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting's Candy Acosta traveled to the Pine Ridge Reservation to find out more about Sioux Messenger's.

Appearance Wolfgang is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and he spent most of his 80 years living in his hometown of most, but not all.

62 years ago, he did what 60 million other Americans did to defend democracy and humanity.

He, too, is an army.

When the uniform.

A recent high school graduate, Clarence, enlisted in the United States Army in the midst of World War Two.

When I went in for the Lakota program, the general Prussian general who nobody remember, Nobody.

Even my rule officer.

We were talking and clearance became one of 12 Sioux code talkers from South Dakota.

The code talkers are ironic in that, the government is going to draw upon the skill, the ability to speak a Native American language, which until 1934, the avowed government policy had been do not let them speak to punish students who try and learn their native languages.

Perhaps the better known code talkers are the Navajos.

Code talking, however, is not limited to Navajos.

There are Sioux code talkers.

There are Comanche code talkers.

For example.

They come from all tribes and you'll.

So you'll see.

Tribes from all across the country.

Because many Native Americans had never seen military machinery, they did not have words in their language to describe them.

So new words needed to be created to facilitate communications within the kernel, to know what a war will do.

And the truth of that message is that if we were going to begin with a method of how we found it in the language, there's talk.

We give to.

And for the Germans and Japanese, this was one of the codes they struggled to break.

But without their knowledge of the language, it became an impossible task.

And one of the great things about a language based code is that it's fast.

Codes are based on an understanding of language, and then an application of mathematics.

If you are going to send a code using traditional cryptography, it's going to take you in the field, a half hour or more to receive a message and then decode it.

If you've got native language speakers involved, the translation is almost instant.

The first two days of using the campaign, the Navajo Code Talkers relay about 800 tactical messages, and it describes the Japanese, not the codes classified almost immediately because, of the advantage that it gives to American forces operating in the field and it remains classified for decades, code talkers work around the clock under heavy combat action in both the Pacific and European theaters.

The military commanders considered them so important that they were assigned bodyguards.

When we enter into Japan, nobody can come within ten feet of us without our bodyguard knowing that everything is memorized.

So that means that any Native American code talker is a potential key to the code.

So you have to protect those those code talkers, because if one falls in the enemy hands and if they break under torture, which soldiers will break under torture?

Then an entire code can be compromised.

So you have to protect these code talkers, all of the people who work in the.

Clean.

The one, even their bodyguards were under explicit orders to kill code talkers in the event of their capture and capture was a reality.

All the training in the world could not have prepared Clarence for the cruelty and hardship of war.

When I pull the trigger.

It's not me shooting him.

Human being.

We have to do it right.

Who knows enough for him?

I was ready to kill.

I knew I needed to remove my shoes.

I didn't think I could do about 500.

I felt compassion, not stop.

From how?

Come.

When the Lord were doing what I've done for.

Didn't.

I have.

What?

I come back, what I show for what I've done.

What my my people, my ship.

Clarence is one of the last surviving Sioux code talkers in South Dakota.

Like many veterans, Clarence usually keeps his warm memories to himself.

Thank you, Clarence, for sharing them with us.

If you'd like more information about Code Talkers, visit us on the web PBS.org.

In our final story, we're going to meet Sheri Freebie and Lee Lunine, two South Dakota sculptors who are using their gift of art to honor South Dakota veterans.

South Dakota Public Broadcasting traveled all across the state and found examples of their work, and then went to Aberdeen to visit their studio.

The band River Art works.

We always show the heroes and in the presence of men or people, they're proud, they're strong.

Physically, they're always way better than average.

On the edge of Aberdeen Lions band River artworks.

The studio of sculptors Lee Lewis and Cherry Tree be here.

They've made a career of capturing reality in clay, giving people a chance to see heroes of the past.

Brought to life in bronze.

As a team, we were.

We're able to produce a lot more artwork.

And, so artists and as a team, we've got two sets of eyes.

Artists make mistakes all the time and form composition.

A lot of really dumb mistakes that you don't see because your left brain accepts, you know?

And then you look at, oh, that's fine.

But, you know, the critical eyes of you.

You know that your audience is too far back.

No, no, no, it is, critical eye.

You can prevent a lot of mistakes and get put in the bronze.

After a chance meeting in a sculpture class 17 years ago, looting and tribe forced their way into becoming two of South Dakota's premier sculptors.

Much of their success can be attributed to their unique team effort, approach to sculpting.

He's very detail oriented.

He loves to do all that little detail that drives me nuts.

And, on the other hand, I have, you know, formal art education training, and, I can pick up on form, human form and stances and facial expressions and that kind of thing.

My discovery is the it's a dental tool.

Rubber to pick your teeth tool.

And it's proven to be one of the best art tools I've ever found for fine detail.

He didn't spend a ton of money on art tools, and nobody's, taught my little discovery to 98 at Walmart.

Lee and Sherry's blended talents have earned Bank River artwork a reputation in the arts community, and we're known for very realistic pieces.

You know the venue we've managed to get our pieces in and been through, monuments and public entities and some private, and that's good.

The nice thing is, is ours are going to be there for 500 years.

They don't go away.

Examples of Treebeard learning's work can be found all across the state.

They've been placed on the foundation's team for the City of Presidents project in Rapid City.

The important part of the city and present this project is to have these figures give you the sense of what this person really was like and look like.

A lot of times, it's really difficult because all we have to work from are paintings and artist versions, and they're always a little bit different.

East River their work can be seen on the Sculpture Walk on Phillips Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls.

Their work is also visible in the center of the state.

In our capital city of pier Lee inferior, the sculptors responsible for the World War Two memorial on Capital Lake and were commissioned to create both the Korean and Vietnam memorials, as well.

When we do a monument piece, it's really research.

We get we get deep into the subject up here.

World War Two is huge.

Involve research in xeroxed photos and stories.

And the same was true in Vietnam.

When you memorialize somebody or some event or a group of people, they know every detail about their existence as a World War Two soldier, a Korean soldier, Vietnam soldier, with Vietnamese soldiers.

They say there's many things they did, they roll their riches up over the boots in the base of the air we breathe through.

And at night the walls and down and time also get bugs out there.

Well, if you portray him.

Wow.

Said it was wrong.

You know, this is a daytime scene.

Doc Farber, the professor emeritus at USC.

This art from the late in his home in, in the South to the Constitution.

He's here.

That's who he wrote.

He is the man of the constitution of South Korea.

He's basically the real author of that.

You don't think of Korea as being that cold, but in the winter when there's snow and it's damp, it's extremely cold.

So we had to make sure that we brought that across in the sculpture.

So he's dressed, you know, in, the Mickey Mouse combat boots and the heavy outer boots and the, the cap, the underneath the helmet and everything.

And the look on his face is very intense.

He's walking from the left to the right, and with his hand weapon in one hand, he's doing a centurion salute as he glances over and his fallen comrades names on the wall.

So it's going to be a interactive piece.

A little reality with a now, but he'll be a ghost from the past, working on his combat boots.

And I think I think they'll be touched.

Lee and Sherry's various projects international commissions for band River artworks, including an inspirational piece for an East Coast college.

This bulldog is Duke.

His name is Duke, and he's for James Madison University in Virginia.

You know, we're doing the city of presents, and we did, James Madison and I got on the internet doing research and talk to James Madison University Alumni Association and, I said, you know, we're doing this work with is there any chance you might be interested in a copy?

We can sell a copy out of state.

And he said, maybe we'll see.

So they got the funds together and they bought one.

And he liked the work so much that they decided to.

The donor said, well, why don't we do a, Duke, for his football stadium?

And, one thing led to another, and this is the research band River Art works puts into their pieces, is not solely for the benefit of the viewer.

It also helps Lee and Sherry shape their own vision of the final product.

And this is John Tyler.

He's for the City of Presidents, project.

And, we're doing him as a musician because he was one of the president of two presidents that was known for his his musical ability.

And, he would in the white House, he and his wife would have, concerts and they'd invite the friends and family over.

And that's what his passion was, was music.

And right now I'm working on his boots.

What was popular back in the 1840s is when that's when he took his office.

Was, Frye boots, believe it or not, in Scotland.

And so I did a little research on, these boots and found an image, and they were, of course, they're not going to be in color, but they were black in the bottom and green leather on top, if you can believe that, you have to have an armature which is equivalent to a skeleton inside of a person, and you've got to have a little support and it's got to be basically in the stance that the figures are going to pose it, and we make it out of England.

And then over that we put styrofoam, and then we start carving the styrofoam into the shape of the of the figure.

Soon, along with President Taylor, the Korean War soldier from the frozen Johnson and the Vietnam vet with the least of boots will find their way to their final resting places forever, saluting those who have given of themselves for this country.

It means so much to them, and that's what really sticks in my mind.

It's very meaningful to them that someone who's recognized, what they went through their no one knows.

I guess when you're in that situation, the kind of how that war is, you can only guess, you can only hear stories, but for them to finally be, you know, their whole life, their whole being, being recognized finally at this stage in the game is very meaningful for them.

We want their grandsons and great grandsons and themselves to think and look at that.

So yeah, that's where I was.

And that their heroes okay, we need heroes.

We need heroes.

Aside from capital, like the Sculpture Walk and the City of Presidents project, Lunine and tribute have their work displayed in other cities all across the state.

Visit sdp.org for more information.

Well, that's all for this edition of Dakota Life.

If you know someone or something that you think would make a good topic for a future program, give us a call or send us an email.

You can also visit our website, where you'll find archived audio and video of all of our past Dakota Life stories.

Until next time for South Dakota Public Broadcasting, I'm Larry Rau.

Thanks for watching.