Montana U.S. Senators Jon Tester, and Steve Daines joined U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte and guests of honor at the renaming of the Billings Veteran Clinic. (courtesy photo.)
“It’s a good day,” began Crow Tribe Vice Chairman Carlson Goes Ahead in opening the ceremony on Tuesday that commemorated the renaming of the Billings Veteran Clinic at 1766 Majestic Street in honor of two World War II heroes.
Goes Ahead’s observation became a theme of other speakers during the ceremony which included Montana’s Congressional Delegation Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester, and US Representative Greg Gianforte. “We always have a good day in Montanan,” said Sen. Daines, “this is a great day.”
The VA’s specialty clinic is being named in honor of the late Benjamin Charles Steele, and the outpatient clinic will be named in honor of the late Chief-Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow.
The ceremony included the unveiling of plaques by family members of the two men.
Medicine Crow was known as the last war chief. He joined the Army in 1943 and was a lifelong ambassador for the Crow tribe. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Barack Obama in 2009. He died in April 2016 at 102.
Steele was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, a treacherous journey for prisoners of war at the hands of the Japanese. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1940. Steele became a noted artist who in later life captured his prisoner- of -war experience in his artwork. He was an art teacher at Eastern Montana College, now Montana State University Billings. Steele died in September 2016 at the age of 98.
