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Show Indian of Today, Like His Forefathers, Proves He's 'First-Class Fighting Man' More Than 11,000 Red Men, Most of Them Volunteers, Are Fighting for Their Native Land as Soldiers, Sailors and Marines. v By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. THE recent announcement by the War Department that Maj. Clarence L. Tinker Jr. of the United States army air forces was missing in action in North Africa was a tragic coincidence, in that just a year ago the War Department announced an-nounced that his father, Maj. Gen. Clarence L. Tinker, commander com-mander of the army air forces in Hawaii, was missing in action. He had led a flight of army bombers to attack the Japanese fleet east of Wake island and he was killed in the - ' M" i : t zens" who might be drafted under the Selective Service act. The case was taken under advisement advise-ment by the judges who heard the arguments. That was late in October, Octo-ber, 1941. Then came Pearl Harbor. Har-bor. After that fateful day, nothing more was heard of the case. The tribesmen of the Six Nations may have regarded themselves as members mem-bers of an "independent, uncon-quered uncon-quered nation" living within the United States but they were Americans Amer-icans first, as well as "First Americans." Amer-icans." In that respect they were like the majority of the red men who had not waited for Pearl Harbor to join up to fight for their country. coun-try. Even before the Japs' attack at-tack on Hawaii it was estimated that one out of every ten eligible Indians between the ages of 21 and 35 were already serving in the armed forces. Descendants of Noted Chiefs. Among them were descendants of many a famous Indian leader whose name has come down in history because be-cause he was a patriot who rallied his warriors to defend their lands against the ' encroachments of the white men. One of the greatest of these was Tecumseh of the Shaw- Battle of Midway. Interesting, too, is the fact that the Tinkers, father and son, were North Arnerican Indians and, at the time of his death, General Tinker was called "the greatest Indian fighter in the present war." But although they are outstanding out-standing examples of the "fighting red man," modern version, they are only two of an estimated 11,000 Indians in the armed forces of the United States and most of them didn't wait to be drafted for service but enlisted voluntarily. Taken by itself, that number does not seem large. But in proportion to the total number of "native Americans" in the United States today, to-day, it is a more imposing record. If an equal proportion of white men . had likewise voluntarily enlisted we would have an army of nearly four million volunteers in addition to the millions who are in the army through selective service. Incidentally, an interesting situation situa-tion in regard to the enrollment of Indians in Uncle Sam's service arose soon after the Selective Service act of 1940 was passed. Into federal court in New York city one autumn day in 1941 marched five brilliantly dressed Indians to watch a white man fight for their rights according to the white man's rules. . They were descendants of the warriors who, away back in 1784, made a treaty with the United States by which the young and struggling federal fed-eral government recognized the Iroquois Iro-quois Indian Confederacy as a sovereign sov-ereign and independent nation. Independent, TJnconquered Nation.' They had come into court to maintain main-tain by legal means their identity as members of that confederacy which, as "an independent, unconquered nation," na-tion," was subject only to its own lawmakers and not to the congress of the United States. On the records rec-ords of the court the case appears as a writ of habeas corpus for one Warren Eldreth Green, a 21-year-old Onondaga Indian, who had been drafted into military service the previous pre-vious May. Young Green had no particular objection to entering the army as a matter of fact a number num-ber of his fellow-tribesmen had already al-ready voluntarily enlisted but he was being used as a test case to challenge the right of the United States government to conscript the young men of an "independent, unconquered un-conquered nation." White counsel for the Indians argued ar-gued that the Iroquois Confederacy had been treated as a foreign nation na-tion until 1924 when a law was passed conferring United States citizenship cit-izenship on Indians. No such law, he contended, could apply to members mem-bers of the Six Nations without their consent. On this premise he argued that the law was unconstitutional and therefore members of the Onondaga, Onon-daga, Cayuga, Seneca, Mohawk, Oneida and Tuscarora tribes could not be numbered among the "citi- MAJOR GENERAL CLARENCE L. TINKER ent conflict may be copper-skinned soldiers, sailors or marines. For more than 17,000 Indians heard the call to arms in 1917 and among them was Odis N. Leader, a Choctaw, Choc-taw, who was foreman of a cattle ranch in Oklahoma. It is an ironical fact that, soon after we declared war on Germany, this "First American" Amer-ican" was the victim of rumors that he was a German spy! To prove his loyalty, he gave up his business and enlisted. He saw action at Can-tigny, Can-tigny, at Soissons, at St. Mihiel and in the Argonne. He was twice wounded and gassed and when the French government sought a "model "mod-el American soldier," of whom an oil painting was to be made t6 hang on the walls of the French federal building, where types of all the Allied Al-lied races were to be represented, Sergt. Odis N. Leader was chosen for that honor! Other Indians who received the Croix de Guerre included Sergt. James M. Gordon, a Chippewa, who braved shell Are to rescue a wounded wound-ed French officer; Chester Armstrong Arm-strong Fourbear, a Sioux, cited for his bravery as a messenger at Belli-courtf Belli-courtf John M. Harper, a Ute; Marty Mar-ty Beaver, a Creek; Bert Hayman, a Seneca-Modoc; Gus Gertiez, a Pueblo bugler; Joseph Oglohombl, a Choctaw; and Corp. Nicholas E. Brown, another Choctaw, who was killed in action and received the award posthumously. Winners of DSC and Croix de Guerre Among those who received the Distinguished Service Cross of their own United States, as well as the Croix de Guerre of France, were Joe Schenderleon, a Crow and Na-Hiv-A-Ta, a Hopi; and Thomas D. Saunders, a scion of the most formidable for-midable fighters the United States army ever encountered in the days of the old frontier the Cheyennes. Here is his record, as given in General Gen-eral Orders of the Second division: "Corporal Thomas D. Saunders, Company A, Second engineers, while a member of the first wire cutting platoon, made his way forward in advance of the unit until he was in line with and in company with Private Pri-vate Wilkerson, Company B, Second engineers, were the first soldiers to enter Jaulny, then infested with snipers, and swept with wicked machine ma-chine gunfire, being occupied by rearguard detachments of the enemy. en-emy. They alone captured 63 German Ger-man prisoners after searching the caves of a hospital with persistence and courage. This at Jaulny, France, on September 12, 1918. ' "Corporal Thomas D. Saunders, Company A, Second engineers; at St. Etienne-a-Armes, on October 8, 1918, he bravely conducted a patrol under heavy fire. During the night, he made a reconnaissance close to the enemy, of the position which his section was to occupy in the front, and returning, conducted It to that position." KITJTUS TECUMSEH nees, who tried to organize a confederacy con-federacy of all the Indian tribes in the Ohio valley in the early 1800s but whose plans were upset when his brother, the Prophet, launched his surprise attack upon the soldiers of Gen. William Henry Harrison and was badly defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. One of the first of the "fighting red men" of today who attempted to enlist in Uncle Sam's armed forces was Kiutus Tecumseh, a descendant de-scendant of the great Shawnee leader. lead-er. He was rejected for military service, however, because he was partially disabled by wounds he received re-ceived while serving aboard a navy sub chaser during World War I. There was a time when the name of Geronimo was a name of hatred and terror in the great Southwest, for this Apache leader blazed a trail of death and destruction through New Mexico and Arizona. Run to earth at last in 1886 by soldiers under un-der the command of Gen. Nelson A. Miles, the "Apache Devil" was held as a prisoner of war in Florida, Alabama and finally at Fort Sill, Okla., until his death in 1911. Thirty years later, Homer Yahnozha, a Mescalero Apache and a direct descendant de-scendant of Geronimo, was one of the heroes who fought at Bataan and Corregidor. Out in Nevada a county and a city perpetuate the name and fame of Winnemucca, great chief of the Piutes, who in his day was a "first-class "first-class fighting man." Today that fighting tradition is carried on by his great-great-grandson, Stanley Winnemucca, Win-nemucca, who is a "Fighting Marine." Ma-rine." Although more Indians have gone into the army than into the marines or the navy, there is at least one who holds high rank in our sea forces. He is Francis J. Mee, a Chippewa, born in Detroit Lakes, Minn., a commander in the navy. The 'Model American Soldier.' If the Indians in World War .II follow the precedent of those who fought in World War I, then some of our greatest heroes of the pres- slISiiH Ki t: H Vik;?t1 f ; pirn ! ) j J i i - ' ' '- w ; GERONIMO I SGT. ODIS N. LEADEE |