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The War Chief Who Became a Peace Chief

Serving as a U.S. Army scout during World War II, Joseph Medicine Crow was rounding a corner in a small French town when he collided with a strapping, young German soldier. Medicine Crow, who was wearing war paint beneath his uniform and had a yellow eagle feather concealed inside his helmet, was not a big man, but he didn’t shoot the enemy. Instead, he disarmed the German with a boot thrust. Throwing his own rifle aside, he overpowered the larger man in hand-to-hand combat. While Medicine Crow was choking him, the German’s eyes rolled back in his head and he gasped “Mama, Mama.” Recounting the tale many years later, Medicine Crow said the soldier’s plea brought him to his senses.

“I let go of him and got my rifle back and he became my prisoner,” he told his son, Ronald Medicine Crow. “We sat down, away from all the shouting and fighting, and I shared a cigarette with him.”

This exploit is a perfect illustration of not only Medicine Crow’s bravery, but also his profound humanity — a quality that brought him some of the world’s highest honors, as well as the respect of all who met him.

A LIFETIME OF HONORS One of USC Dornsife’s most distinguished alumni, Joseph Medicine Crow was a renowned Native American historian and writer, the last war chief of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation and its first member to earn a master’s degree. In 2009, President Barack Obama honored him with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in recognition of his military service and contributions to Native American history. The previous year, he was awarded a Bronze Star and the Légion d’Honneur — France’s highest order of merit — for his service in World War II.

According to Crow tradition, a warrior must fulfill four requirements to be named a war chief. Medicine Crow accomplished all four during WWII: leading a successful war party, touching an enemy soldier without killing him, disarming an enemy soldier, and capturing an enemy’s horse. Indeed, among his war exploits, Medicine Crow is credited with capturing 50 horses from a Nazi SS camp and successfully leading a team of soldiers to dynamite German artillery.

He also claimed to be the first Allied soldier to land in Nazi Germany after his captain ordered him to leap over the narrow stream that marked the Siegfried Line separating the country from France — a feat for which he was later congratulated by General Omar Bradley, one of General Dwight Eisenhower’s right-hand men.

“AN ALL-ROUND MAN” Born into the Whistling Waters clan on the Crow Reservation in Lodge Grass, Montana, in 1913, Medicine Crow came from a distinguished lineage: His paternal grandfather was the eminent Chief Medicine Crow and his step-father was the son of White Man Runs Him — one of George Armstrong Custer’s four personal scouts at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Medicine Crow was raised by his grandparents, who immersed him in Crow traditions, inculcating stamina and tribal skills.

“His Grandfather Yellowtail trained him in the old warrior ways,” Ronald Medicine Crow says. “In wintertime, they chopped a hole in the ice and took a refreshing morning plunge. Then Yellowtail told him to run a hundred yards in the snow barefoot. In summer and fall, Dad learned hunting and tracking skills.

“My father was raised as a farm boy, rancher, outdoorsman, hunter, cowboy, jockey and exercise boy — he was an all-round man.”

During his formative years, Joseph Medicine Crow was also absorbing the history of his tribe. When elders gathered at the sweat lodge, telling stories of intertribal warfare and mythological heroes, Medicine Crow, who served as their water boy, was listening and taking mental note.

This early knowledge forged a lifelong love of Native American history. Widely recognized as the last person to have heard accounts of the Battle of Little Bighorn directly from participants in the 1876 conflict and a naturally gifted storyteller in his own right, Medicine Crow grew up to be revered as one of the most influential and knowledgeable carriers of his people’s oral history.

After WWII, he became tribal historian for the Apsáalooke (Crow) Tribal Council, documenting his people’s traditions and daily life in several books, including From the Heart of the Crow Country: The Crow Indian’s Own Stories (Crown, 1992).

PERSEVERANCE PAYS OFF Unable to speak English as a young child, Medicine Crow’s formal education got off to a rough start when he struggled to pronounce “excuse me” to his teacher’s satisfaction after suffering a bout of hiccups on his first day. She made him don a dunce’s cap and sent him to the sand box to play with wooden blocks. This treatment continued for his first two years of school.

From eighth grade through his first two years of college, Medicine Crow attended Bacone College in Oklahoma, becoming a star pitcher for the baseball team and excelling at javelin. He became an accomplished musician, learning to play six instruments — saxophone, clarinet, flute, piano, accordion and the Indian hand drum.

In high school, he also began to study seriously, competing with a friend to get top grades.

“That’s how he came from being in the sandbox with a dunce’s cap to being an A student and making the honor roll,” Ronald Medicine Crow says. pretty soon we were more than welcome to come into town and do business,” says Ronald Medicine Crow.

Joseph Medicine Crow showed a lifelong commitment to education, teaching in the Department of Crow Studies at Montana’s Little Big Horn College. A middle school in Billings, Montana, was named after him.

And in 2000, the war chief — who was also a devout Baptist who taught a men’s Sunday school class — performed the opening song for the United Nations summit conference for spiritual and religious leaders.

Ronald Medicine Crow says his father was profoundly influenced by Christianity and did his best to live a good life and be a role model for young and old alike.

“My father said, ‘I live in two worlds: the Indian world and the white world. There is a middle line that joins those two worlds together. … I walk that line and take what’s good from both.’

“Dad was a humanist who loved all people, even his enemies, He was a man of dignity, but a humble man. He didn’t hold grudges. He was forgiving and positive. And people loved him for that.”

A TRAILBLAZER AND A ROLE MODEL Medicine Crow died on April 2, 2016, at age 102. State officials attended his funeral, and tributes poured in from all over the world, including from Obama.

The tributes continued even after Medicine Crow’s death. This year, on April 16, USC honored the USC Dornsife alumnus by officially naming a historic campus building after him. The Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow Center for International and Public Affairs is located at the heart of USC’s University Park campus, its tower topped by one of the university’s most visible and recognizable landmarks — the stylized

globe. The center is home to many USC Dornsife departments, including anthropology, art history, international relations and political science. A scholarship program for Native Americans will also be established in his name.

In her speech at the naming ceremony, USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller paid tribute to Medicine Crow, describing him as “a bridgebuilder.”

“He connected new generations with stories of their past, helped communities overcome intolerance toward indigenous peoples, and found ways to link the Crow people’s cultural traditions with the opportunities of modern society,” she said.

“Joe Medicine Crow was also known for being a generous mentor — he was patient and encouraging and eager to invest in others. Most importantly, he showed how to live through his actions.” —S.B.

Joseph Medicine Crow pursued his studies at Linfield College in Oregon before arriving at USC Dornsife in 1938 on a scholarship. He earned his master’s in anthropology with an archaeology minor in 1939. His thesis, “The Effects of European Culture Contacts Upon the Economic, Social and Religious Life of the Crow Indians,” is regarded as the

“Dad was a humanist who loved all people, even his enemies.”

seminal scholarly work on the topic.

By the early 1940s, Medicine Crow had completed the coursework to earn a PhD at USC Dornsife, but determined to serve his country, he joined the U.S. Army in 1942. USC awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2003 — one of four honorary doctorates he received during his lifetime.

Upon returning home from WWII, Medicine Crow started a successful career as a land appraiser for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There he put his archaeology training at USC to good use, surveying land to ensure no sacred burial sites or artifacts were disturbed by development.

PEACE CHIEF Saddened by the anti-Native American discrimination he witnessed, he hit upon the idea of creating a Miss Indian America pageant to help promote unity between the white and Indian people. Held during the AllAmerican Indian Days — an annual celebration of Native American culture and another initiative of Medicine Crow to foster positive relations — the pageant was a success. “It changed the climate, and In April, USC honored USC Dornsife alumnus Joseph Medicine Crow (pictured here in 2015) by officially naming a historic campus building after him.

Recognition

COMMUNICATOR OF THE YEAR The inaugural Communicator of the Year Awards honor five USC Dornsife scholars for their exemplary efforts to share their expertise and engage with the public in 2021. Their efforts improved public understanding of issues, influenced policy or raised levels of public discourse.

HUMANITIES SUSAN KAMEI, managing director of the Spatial Sciences Institute, emerged as one of America’s most prominent and visible scholars on Japanese American incarceration during World War II.

NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS ANNA KRYLOV, professor of chemistry, warned of the dangers of political ideology influencing science, sparking a national conversation.

SOCIAL SCIENCES KYLA THOMAS, associate sociologist with USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research, emerged as a popular and authoritative media source on Los Angeles County’s changing social and economic conditions.

CENTER OR INSTITUTE LEADER MANUEL PASTOR, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity, Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change, and director of the USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute, shared his expertise and sharp analysis on equity and social change.

PHD STUDENT KIERSTEN FORMOSO, doctoral candidate in Earth sciences, improved public understanding of dinosaurs while inspiring young people to study paleontology.

Shaking up the research

High-powered computers, sensors and simulators are giving scientists fresh insight into earthquakes.

Earthquakes are an omnipresent source of anxiety in California, where the San Andreas fault threatens to erupt at any moment into the dreaded “Big One.”

Since 1991, USC Dornsife’s Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) has been working to better understand this phenomenon and to help assuage earthquake fears.

High-performance computing (HPC) uses powerful supercomputers to simulate and analyze data, producing much faster results than a standard desktop computer. SCEC uses this technology to clarify how often earthquakes of varying magnitudes are expected in different regions.

It also determines how factors such as the direction a fault ruptures and wave resonance in sedimentary basins — where loose rocks and soil settle over millions of years — all combine to increase ground motion at certain locations.

Recently, SCEC’s use of HPC won the 2021 HPCwire Editor’s Choice Award for Best Use of High-Performance Computing in the Physical Sciences.

SCEC is working on other high-tech initiatives, as well, such as installing sensors where tectonic plates converge. This will greatly boost the available data on what happens close to the source of earthquakes. The center is also developing a “Next-Generation Earthquake Simulator” that will address key questions, such as which physical processes produce the conditions for large earthquakes to occur.

“Progress in research computing and earthquake simulators will improve our understanding of the processes that lead to large earthquakes. This, combined with future improved data and advanced analyses of signals, has a high potential for improving our ability to forecast large earthquakes,” says Yehuda Ben-Zion, director of the center and professor of Earth sciences at USC Dornsife.

In addition to advancing earthquake science, SCEC helps people prepare for the next earthquake.

The center’s “Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety” guide, available in 14 languages, explains what to do before, during and after earthquakes. SCEC also helps coordinate the annual Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drill, which encourages people to “drop, cover and hold on” each October. Millions have participated worldwide.

The center is also training the next generation of earthquake scientists. More than 700 undergraduates have participated in SCEC’s Internships Program, which pairs students with Earth science researchers. —M.C.

What physical changes occur in the brain when a memory is made?

A team of researchers from USC Dornsife and USC Viterbi School of Engineering has, for the first time, answered this question by inducing a memory in a larval zebrafish and then mapping changes in its transparent head with the fish’s brain cells lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

After six years of research, the researchers discovered that learning causes brain synapses — the connections between neurons — to proliferate in some areas and disappear in others rather than merely changing their strength, as commonly thought. These changes in synapses may help explain how memories are formed and why certain kinds of memories, including those associated with PTSD, are stronger than others.

The study was made possible thanks to a new type of cell labeling and a custom-made microscope invented at USC that enabled researchers to observe changes in living animals and get before and after pictures of the changes on the same specimen.

The researchers were able to determine for the first time the strength and location of synapses before and after learning occurred in the brain of a living zebrafish, an animal commonly used to study brain function. By taking the unprecedented step of keeping the fish alive, they were able to compare synapses in the same brain over time — a breakthrough in the neuroscience field.

“Our probes can label synapses in a living brain without altering their structure or function, which was not possible with previous tools,” says Donald Arnold, professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife and biomedical engineering at USC Viterbi. —M.G.

Mapping Memory

Using glowing fish and a microscope, researchers produce the first snapshots of memory in a living animal.