Brothers and Sisters:

  I, your Ugu, have been in bed much of the last two months and have made little effort to fulfill the clerical responsibilities that have been left for the Head Chief to preform.

I don't want to put out my personal problems, but as a young rifleman, an artillary round blew me up once and a concussion grenade blew me up another time in the Korean War.  In the Vietnam War, as an infantry officer in special operations, I was blown out of a VC camp.  That ruined my day.  One trip to the 8th. Field Army Hospital, South Vietnam, I needed an operation but was about to bleed to death.  They gave me blood coagulants to thicken my blood and stop the bleeding.  When I left the hospital I started having blood clots.  When I got back to Fort Bragg, I had a blood clot on my left brainstem.  My right side, which is my injured side, was paralyzed, and I was in and out of Womack and Walter Reed Army Hospitals for a year.  I went through speech therapy and physical therapy for that period of time.  I got out of a wheelchair, was retired with permanent physical disability and came back to Texas.  I was pretty much in bad shape for the first three years after I got out.  Margie and the kids lived through all of this, and got me through it all.

Now those four areas of my brain that have bad spots in them, and I have hardening of the brain in those areas, they started "sparking out" on me over the years.  About 7 years ago the doctor put me on a dosage of pills that has kept me from crashing out at different times.  I would be down for five minutes or an hour, and then come back up.  It didn't bother me, but poor Margie got the bad end of it.  My brain still works, and I want to do things, but I cannot go at the same speed as I did a few years ago.  I've gotten to where I procrastinate too much and don't get much finished.

From the start of our tribe, I have done all the work on getting things up and running; newsletters, answered letters, made out all the cards, and kept everything filed.  I've run out of gas.  If the HQ can be placed someplace else and all the paper work go there, and I can just fulfill my obligations as a chief, then I can do that. My father knows I've gotten this far, so he died happy and so will I.  Otherwise, I don't think I can keep up with this and if the chief must keep going this way, vote someone else in as Ugu.

The man who is secretary for the Tribal Council is not the tribal secretary.  He works with the leaders of the Northern District.  If he worked for the tribe, he would handle all the paperwork that I handle.

My War Name is Asgayadihi, "Mankiller," and Tsawaninski, "I have said it."

Donvdagohvi,
Ugu Hicks