Valor Friday

There is once more a push to elevate valor awards to minorities who may have been overlooked (or even had recommendations downgraded) because of their race. In this case, Military Times is reporting on the efforts of a small group to properly recognize the sacrifices of Native troops during World War I.

The Code Talkers of World War II’s Pacific War are well known, but similar Code Talkers were used to transmit coded messages in the clear in every theater of the war. They were also used, to a much smaller degree, during World War I. Some of those men are included in this reported review.

There have been similar award reviews for the Second World War. Those efforts resulted in much delayed recognition of exceptional bravery. One such award made in the 1990s after this review was to S/Sgt Ruben Rivers, which I discussed earlier this year. According to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, there have been 32 Medals of Honor awarded to Native men, with the vast majority of those awards being to Indian Scouts during the Indian Wars of the late 19th Century.

From Military Times;

“I’m so thankful that his blood runs in our veins,” said Tewanna Anderson-Edwards of her great uncle Otis W. Leader, a World War I Choctaw code talker.

Leader, a corporal in the Army’s 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, once destroyed a machine gun nest singlehandedly after some of his men had been killed, capturing two machine guns and defeating 18 enemy soldiers in the process.

He would go on to receive the Purple Heart, the Silver Star Medal, the Victory Medal and French Croix de Guerre with Palm, among other awards.

General John J. Pershing even once referred to Leader as one of the “war’s greatest fighting machines,” according to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

But despite those accolades, Leader and other WWI code talkers — service members who used Indigenous languages to create undecipherable communications — still haven’t received the recognition they deserve, Edwards believes.

“There’s just no telling how many lives they saved,” Edwards told Military Times.

A move to rectify that, however, may be on the horizon.

Leader is one of a group of Indigenous veterans who are currently being reviewed as potential recipients of the Medal of Honor — more than a century after they served. In all, roughly 12,000 Native Americans served during World War I.

“It’s my ultimate goal to see that he gets his due recognition. … He so deserved it,” Edwards said. “He wasn’t just a code talker, he was a war hero.”

Leader’s eligibility for the Medal of Honor comes as part of the World War I Valor Medals Review Act, which was passed as part of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.

The law allows for a review of actions by non-white veterans who served in World War I to determine whether select acts of valor, which were during that period often diminished due to one’s skin color, warrant the nation’s highest military honor.

To qualify, veterans from various racial backgrounds must have been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, French Croix de Guerre with Palm or have been recommended for a Medal of Honor.

Once such a service record is brought to the attention of the Army or Navy, the associated branch reviews the record and issues a determination regarding award status.

As part of that process, the Pentagon was advised to collaborate with the Valor Medals Review Task Force, a joint operation run by the World War I Centennial Commission and Park University’s George S. Robb Centre for the Study of the Great War.

Dr. Timothy Westcott, the Missouri-based department’s director, told Military Times he first became interested in the subject after he saw a university presentation during Black History Month about Sgt. William A. Butler, a Black war hero who was nominated for, but never received, the Medal of Honor.

In September 1918, George S. Robb — the department’s namesake — was recommended for a Medal of Honor on the same piece of paper as Butler. While Robb would go on to receive the nation’s highest military decoration, Butler would be presented a Distinguished Service Cross.

From there, Westcott got involved with the Centennial Commission, which oversaw the Valor Medals Review Project and Task Force and researched veteran service records to make retroactive award recommendations to the Pentagon and Congress.

When the commission disbanded in 2024 after completing the National World War I Memorial in Washington, the Robb Centre took charge of that effort.

So far, Westcott and the department have identified 214 service members from World War I who met the criteria for Medal of Honor eligibility. Of those, 24 are Indigenous veterans.

“We have submitted 56 [total] nomination packets,” he said, noting that the process is particularly grueling. “It takes us about six to nine months to write a nomination packet, and those are approximately 150 to 165 pages in length each.”

Of the 56 packets Westcott’s team has submitted, 49 have been sent to the Army. The other seven have gone to the Navy.

There’s much more at the source, including a few other named soldiers. Here’s a quick rundown on what I was able to find about them.

• Corporal Otis W Leader – According to his obit, “Otis W. Leader, another hero of World War I, was born near Citra in Hughes County, on November 5, 1882. He entered the army at the age of thirty-five, one of the oldest men in the service. He had attended Oklahoma Presbyterian College and Texas A&M playing baseball and football in his youth. Upon his arrival in France, Leader was selected to pose as the model representative of the newly arrived American soldiers by a French artist commissioned to paint portraits of the Allied army by the French government. His portrait and statue are in Paris and London. Winning the French Croix de Guerre twice, a Purple Heart, and Battle Stars for Sommerviller, Ansauville, Picardy, Cantigny, Second Marne, St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, Mouson-Sedan, and Coblenz Bridgehead, Leader was called one of the “war’s greatest fighting machines” by General Pershing. On the night of November 2, 1917, Leader’s company drew the first relief assignment, moving into the trenches at Bathlemont. The following day his company defended the flank in the first engagement of Americans in combat of World War I. On May 28, 1918, Leader was wounded and gassed during the American offensive at Cantigny but rejoined his division near Soissons in July. In the next battle, he crawled through a ravine to attack a machine gun nest. Getting within sixty feet of the enemy, Leader picked up a rifle and fought with the infantry after his own machine gun crew had all been killed. Attacking the German positions, Leader captured two machine guns and eighteen enemy soldiers manning them. On October 1, 1918, he was wounded again and hospitalized at Vichy. He was still in the hospital when the armistice was signed on November 11. Returning to Oklahoma, Leader quietly married Minnie Lee and moved to Scipio in Pittsburg County, where he worked with the Highway Department for twenty-five years before retiring to Lehigh. In 1955, the Oklahoma House of Representatives praised Leader as the Outstanding Soldier of World War I. He was buried at Coalgate in 1961.For his valor, Leader received a Purple Heart, two Silver Stars, the Distinguished Service Cross, nine battle stars and two individual awards of the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military honor.”
• Private First Class Leo McGuire – His DSC citation reads, “The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private First Class Leo Francis McGuire (ASN: 10388), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Section No. 647, Ambulance Service, American Expeditionary Forces, near Seicheprey, France, 19 April 1918. Private First Class McGuire was on duty as driver of an ambulance at an advanced post. During April 19 and 20 he made several trips to and from a dressing station reached by an exposed road in daylight for the purpose of bringing back wounded. On one of these trips the ambulance was blown from the road by the explosion of a shell and he was knocked unconscious by the shock. On recovering consciousness he returned on foot. Although suffering from an injury in the back and not yet recovered from the shock, he wished to return to duty the afternoon of the same day, but was not permitted to do so by the medical officers until the afternoon of the following day.”
• Private Pontiac Williams – His DSC citation reads, “The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private Pontiac J. Williams, Jr. (ASN: 263592), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Company K, 125th Infantry Regiment, 32d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, at Hill No. 212, near Sergy, northeast of Chateau-Thierry, France, 31 July 1918. Private Williams volunteered to go out in front of our lines and bring in a wounded runner. Although he was shot in the face before he reached the runner, he accomplished his mission.”

Williams did what now? He left the trenches to go out and rescue a wounded soldier. He was shot in the process, but continued. Bravery of the highest order to be sure, but he was shot in his face! That’s not the kind of wound one receives and just carries on with his attempts to reach his fallen comrade. He was 5’3″ and 132 pounds. That he was going out alone to drag anyone back is incredible. Of these three names, his is clearly the most deserving of another look.

While Leader and McGuire’s actions were undoubtedly brave, on the face of it I don’t see racism as any reason they were denied a MoH. Many similar DSC and Silver Star Citations read like that.

Category: Army, Historical, Valor, We Remember