Tecumseh Nathaniel UnderwoodUnderwoodTecumseh NathanielOKCold WarArmy592nd Signal Company; 42nd Engineer Company; Berlin BrigadePrivate First ClassWest Berlin, GermanyNoVeteran“I’m 73 years old, and every day I’m proud of the fact that I spent my time doing what I could for my country.” (Video interview, 38:03)A Seminole Indian, Private First Class Tecumseh Nathaniel Underwood faced limited employment prospects in his home state of Oklahoma. A strong sense of patriotism drove him to follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps and enlist in the Army. Stationed in West Berlin from 1962 to 1965, he comments in his oral history interview, “I was in the middle of the destruction of a city.”Tecumseh Underwood at time of interviewCold War Dispatches: Service Stories from 1947-1991Legacies of Service: Celebrating Native VeteransEntrance into the service; tradition of military service in Seminole community; first of his age group to go into the service.Getting along with the West German civilians he encountered; absorbing German history and culture; land mines all around perimeter of city.His service and how it connected to the war in Vietnam; receiving communications from Vietnam; applied to deploy to Vietnam but denied; buddy who was approved was killed.Force movement of ancestors; instilled spirit of survival in him; proud of his service every day.Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congresshttps://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.107900/DLC-AFC2021-12-13loc.natlib.afc2001001.107900