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Robert L. Bennett
Oneida Indian Veterans 
POSTON PROJECT

A
POSTON TRAINING CENTER

1. There is a real need for a training center for Indian veterans in the Southwest and particularly in the State of Arizona. There are 3400 Indian Veterans of the Navajo Tribe, and 1900 veterans of other Indian Tribes in Arizona. Economic resources on the Navajo, Hopi, and Papago Reservations, affecting some 4000 of the above mentioned veterans, preclude the great percentage of these veterans from obtaining a livelihood on said reservations. Training facilities for trade or secondary education are virtually non-existent  with a few limited facilities developed at some of the Agency headquarters.

2. It, therefore, must be apparent to the Indian veterans that because of lack of facilities offering training suitable for their needs, their opportunities for education, training and vocational rehabilitation through the Veterans Administration will be exhausted without benefit to them unless a large training center is developed for them. This is particularly distressing when one considers the lack of education and training among India veterans. For example, the median number of years of school completed by the Navajos is 0.9 or 1 year compared to the national figure of 8.4 years.

3. It was proposed to use the buildings and plant formerly operated by the War Relocation Authority on the Colorado River Indian Reservation at Poston. With some improvements and repairs to the existing plant, Poston could have been developed into a training center capable of education and training some four or five hundred veterans at one time. Training would have been given in agriculture and related occupations and the building trades. The U.S. Department of Education had agreed to assist in this project by providing funds for the necessary repairs and improvements.

4. In addition, the quarters formerly occupied by the Japanese were to be reconditioned for use as living quarters for married veterans. Dormitories were to be provided for single veterans.

5. For sometime the Indian Service and Veterans Administration have been trying to establish a Training Center for Indian veterans at Poston, Arizona. In an opinion of the Solicitor of the Interior Department dated April 29, 1947, Memorandum M-34921, some doubt was cast upon the plan of the Indian Service to operate a training center at Poston because of the interest of the Colorado River Tribes and several Government agencies in the buildings and plant. This issue has not been settled to date in such a manner as to give the Indian Service the right to use the buildings and plant for the purposes stated.

6. The Indian Service also made an effort to have the Veterans Administration advance sufficient tuition payments to it so that necessary funds would be available to commence operation of the training center. This request was made