I had to say yes: all in our family have a proud photo of our handsome Miles who was pure Irish Roman Catholic who went and served in the Vatican Guard in Rome, before he moved to America to become an ancestor of mine. You might guess he is buried at Little Big Horn.

I mis understood at first that the person who sent the email was a fellow descendant, as you, like I likely hear from people with our name, or some story that we may be related. So at first I thought we were, and chattily replied with some inside family scoop we know from our elders having researched the life and death of our Miles often.

Our research was seen mostly from the white man version, but not only.But no, he replied, he had just watched, as I have previously, that old John Wayne movie the Yellow Rose of something. In it, Mr Wayne receives the news of the Little Big Horn massacre, and he reads aloud the list of those killed, the real list.

And he waxed most eloquently about Miles Keough, who as our family history shows it,was everything John Wayne described. Mr Wayne looked into the distance and spoke so fondly about Miles, as the best fighter, gun shooter, card player, greatest friend a man ever did have. It choked me up, and I had nothing to do with it.

We now know from research and television documentaries that have us walk the narrow valleys between the folding hills of Montana. It was not Custer who applied the winning tactics of a Caesar nor the wise caution of Jefferson, American history shows, but Sitting Bull and his warriors who did that.

Research and empty bullet cartridges and bone fragments tell the truth. Sitting Bull and his people, having been pushed across the prairies while the white men searched for diamonds and gold and broke treaty after treaty. They had been promised their homelands in the Black Hills far to the east.

But the cry for gold in them there hills had them pushed closer to the mountains. They were a plains people who lived off the disappearing buffalo and their back was at the mountains. Whose last stand was it, really? Sitting Bull and his warriors set up a bait and fake trap, with some decoys to pretend to fight but then run.

Custer took the bait, and his men were lost and blind in these narrow valleys. Hidden native warriors with newer rifles than Custer had, supplied by the same thieves who claimed their land, killed the soldiers to a man, in the many small folds in the sloping hills.

Our boys died gallantly but needlessly, led by a fool of the moment. But we also now sadly know they died not so much on the hilltop; but rather down in each valley fold in a panic,every which way as native bullet casings and skeletal remains show.

It is ongoing, each generation, each day, each moment, that we must see all that we more clearly observe, take the time to orient ourselves to what our gut says, make a decision, and act.

Custer had that all out of order that day, and we finally realize the golden haired Wonder Custer was Not. If he had been a modern fighter pilot he would have been shot out of the sky within the first minute. I would like to think our Miles would have shot his way clear, and retired nearby. Near where my maternal grandfather was born 17 years later.

So read, notice, listen and do these four powerful steps before your next battles. This news is power and for you too, and not just fighter pilots. Observe, Orient yourself, decide, and act, Tiger. The pussycats are all yours. Smile deeply, breath deeply and have your calming tea and chat just before you must lift your lance and match into that den.Smiles.