Indigenous WWI veterans get long awaited Medal of Honor review
Published: 24 December 2024
By Riley Ceder
via the Military Times website

Native American WWI troops to get Medal of Honor
A number of Indigenous WWI soldiers pose for a photo at Camp Devens, Massachusetts. (Indiana University Archaeology and Anthropology Museum)
“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.

Cpl. Otis W. Leader, a World War I code talker who’s now eligible for the Medal of Honor. (Courtesy of the Sequoyah National Research Center)
“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.

Pvt. Leo F. McGuire, a Native American soldier, received the Distinguished Service Cross on Aug. 9, 1918. (National Archives)
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.
Read the entire article on the Military Times website here:
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