Generation killer

Culture: Meth addiction may be the greatest threat yet to face U.S. Indian reservations | Jill Nelson

RAPID CITY, S.D.— As dusk settled on the four stalwart faces of Mt. Rushmore, the crowd of 20,000 awaited the famed fireworks celebration at the national monument. Soon a fifth face, animated, loomed into view: Rosebud Sioux Tribal member Robert Moore, 44, clothed in his native dress, began to sing "God Bless America." It was both solemn and energizing, sending the crowd of visitors for the July 4th performance to its feet. Moore ended with the "Lakota Flag Song." A B-1 bomber made its pass over the presidents, and for a moment the worlds of native and Anglo-Saxon America intertwined.

But shortly after the celebration, Moore returned home to the isolated Rosebud Sioux Reservation—one of 560 tribal enclaves across the United States and a territory few tourists or residents in the Mt. Rushmore audience have ever visited. Nestled hours away on the eastern end of the state, the reservation's problems are many and its laborers are few. According to Moore and others, the latest to attack his people may be the most dangerous yet: the highly addictive drug called methamphetamine, or meth.