On Holy Ground

We are camped tonight at Sheridan, Wyoming, in the heart of the land for which the Sioux, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne fought so hard a bit more than a century ago. It was their hunting grounds, a land rich with game which made survival a little bit easier. It was a place they wanted to live out their lives undisturbed.
But there was another people who wanted this land as well, a people thirsting for gold and for a land they could help them not only to survive but to build a new life. When these cultures collided, men, women, and children died. One hundred twenty-four years ago today, George Armstrong Custer led the 7th Cavalry into the valley of the Little Bighorn River. None came out, for there were 2000 Sioux in that valley, 2000 Sioux with their backs to the wall. It is variously called a battle, a massacre, a "Last Stand", but to me it was a collision of cultures. There was right and wrong on both sides, but still men died. That is the story of war; it is always a collision of ideas and cultural thinking.
Although we chose not to visit Little Bighorn today, I still feel as though I am walking on holy ground. My ancestors are Blackfoot and Oklahoma Cherokee (or maybe Choctaw, no one is sure) and they were not here, but I still feel a personal sense of the sacred when I set foot on these blood-soaked plains. Was that day a day like today, a day of azure sky filled with high clouds, a day of green velvet hills? Was it a warm day, a day in which unshaded heat could press one down into the ground? I have read the story of that day and must read it again, for I cannot remember.
But I am walking on holy ground. While I believe that all of the earth is holy, those places where men, women, and children are willing to lay down their lives are the most holy of all. Rest in peace, men of the 7th; rest in peace, men of the Sioux nation; rest in peace all you innocents who were caught up in this struggle for this place; rest in peace, for you lie in holy ground.