John Jarvis Author Event 

   

 

Before he left the world this year at age 97, Sargent John “Pail Face” Sarmiento had served America in three wars beginning with World War II, followed by two tours of duty in Korea, and ending with 22 months in Vietnam.  He also fought his way out of alcohol addiction and remained sober for 50 years.  He was not allowed to attend school as an Indian child but later used the G. I. Bill to earn a Master’s Degree from the University of Illinois.  He also mastered five languages as a soldier during extended tours of duty around the world. 

Most remarkable of all, he survived not one but two genocides.  His Native American people lost the first one but he won the second in World War II as a foot soldier fighting Hitler’s war machine in Europe.  “I don’t know which fight wounded me worse,” he would say, looking back as an old man.  And yet, he found ways over a long lifetime to heal from the thousand small wounds of poverty and from the much larger wounds of war, alcoholism, lack of formal education, and genocide.

At age 90, Old Johnny asked Dr. John Jarvis, a professor of Native American Studies at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, to write his story.  The result is the recently published book entitled Johnny Pail Face Becomes a Human Being.

 

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