Paul Cook: “I will be damned if I am going to bury anymore Marines on my watch.”

In April, the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against Women Act, which included many key provisions to protect Native American women.

It is important that we all work together to address these horrific crimes and find a way to end this unprecedented violence against Native women.

Four out of five Native women are affected by violence, with the U.S. Department of Justice finding that American Indian women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average.

My hope is that we can understand the root causes, if we can get there, of these persistent challenges.