[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8577-S8579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HONORING NATIVE AMERICAN HEROES

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, Americans are united today in concern for 
the safety and well-being of our men

[[Page S8578]]

and women in uniform--especially those who are serving in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, risking their lives to advance human freedom.
  This morning, I would like to speak about the extraordinary service 
of a group of soldiers from two earlier wars.
  We know these men today as ``the code talkers.''
  They were Native American soldiers who used the languages of their 
tribes to send strategic military communications during World Wars I 
and II. Their impenetrable codes saved the lives of countless American 
troops in Europe and throughout the Pacific.
  The Navajo code talkers are the best-known of these men. Three years 
ago, they were honored, rightly, with congressional medals.
  But the Navajo were not the only code talkers. Soldiers from at least 
15 other Indian Nations--including the Cherokee, Choctaw, Comanche, 
Pawnee, Seminole, Osage, Kiowa, Hopi and other nations--also served as 
code talkers. And 11 code talkers came from the Lakota, Dakota, and 
Nakota nations, known to many as the Great Sioux Nation.
  Of those 11, nine--John Bear King of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; 
Simon Broken Leg and Iver Crow Eagle, Sr., of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe; 
Eddie Eagle Boy and Phillip LaBlanc, of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; 
Bap-TEEST Pumpkinseed of the Oglala Sioux Tribe; Edmund St. John of the 
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe; and Walter C. John of the Santee Sioux Tribe of 
Nebraska--have all passed on.
  Charlie Whitepipe is one of the two surviving Lakota code talkers.
  In 1941, he enlisted in the United States Army. He was already in 
training in California when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The following 
day, he shipped out to Hawaii.
  From Hawaii, his unit was sent to the Pacific island nation of New 
Guinea.
  It was in New Guinea that another soldier, from Sioux Falls, told his 
commanding officer that Charlie Whitepipe would make a good forward 
observer because--in his words--``the Sioux are stealthy, sneaky, 
people.''
  The characterization angered Whitepipe, but it apparently impressed 
his commanding officer.
  Charlie Whitepipe spent the next 2 years in New Guinea as a forward 
observer and radio man, moving ahead of his unit and communicating in 
Lakota with a ship-based partner to direct artillery fire at enemy 
troops.
  In 1944, he was shipped home, suffering from malaria and jungle rot, 
the result of months spent in water-filled foxholes.
  After an honorable discharge, he returned to Rosebud, married, and 
raised six children with his wife.
  He spent 30 years working as a lineman with the rural electric 
association, helping to bring electricity to the Rosebud Reservation 
and other parts of rural South Dakota. In his son's words, ``He got up 
and went to work 6 days a week and on the 7th day, he got up and took 
his family to church.''
  Charlie Whitepipe turned 86 this month. He suffers today from a 
profound hearing loss caused in part by artillery explosions.
  His family remains the center of his life.
  Clarence Wolf Guts is the other surviving Lakota code talker.
  He enlisted in the Army 7 months after Pearl Harbor with his friend 
and cousin, Iver Crow Eagle, Sr.
  During Ranger training in Alabama, an officer discovered that the 
cousins could both speak, read, and write Lakota. As Mr. Wolf Guts 
recalls it, that officer ``thought he'd hit the jackpot.''
  Clarence Wolf Guts was assigned to travel with a general in the 
Pacific, and Iver Crow Eagle was assigned as a radio operator for a 
colonel.
  For the next 3 years, the cousins jumped from one Pacific island to 
the next, pushing the Japanese back.
  They also helped develop a phonetic alphabet based on Lakota that was 
later used to develop a Lakota code.
  One day, as bullets and shrapnel exploded around him, Clarence Wolf 
Guts whispered a prayer in Lakota:

       Bring me home, God, and I will praise your name always.

  His prayer was answered.
  Clarence Wolf Guts returned safely to Pine Ridge in 1946, married 
and--like Charlie Whitepipe--raised six children.
  Today, at 80, he marches with veterans groups whenever he can.
  The Yankton Sioux were among the first Native American soldiers to 
use a native language to confound enemy troops, in World War I. Through 
two world wars, no native language or code based on an indigenous 
American language was ever broken.
  What makes the code talkers story even more extraordinary to some is 
the fact that these men chose to fight for the United States at all.
  As young boys, Charlie Whitepipe and Clarence Wolf Guts spoke only 
Lakota. Like most of the code talkers, however, they were forced to 
attend schools in which they were forbidden to speak their native 
language.
  Students who broke the English-only rules were punished harshly; many 
were beaten, some even to death.
  It was part of a sad, brutal chapter in our Nation's history in which 
the United States Government and other institutions tried to strip 
Indian children of their tribal identities.
  Despite that history, despite the failure of the United States 
Government to honor its treaty obligations and other commitments to 
tribes, Native Americans have long had a higher rate of military 
service than any other group in America.
  Another young Lakota soldier, Sheldon Hawk Eagle, was laid to rest in 
the National Cemetery in the Black Hills just before Thanksgiving last 
year. Like so many Lakota people before him, he died serving this 
Nation.
  This past Fourth of July, I was honored to march with other veterans 
at a powwow at the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. 
Among the veterans who marched with us that day were two members of the 
tribe who were home on leave from Iraq.
  That evening, at our State's annual Fourth of July fireworks 
celebration at Mount Rushmore, South Dakotans paid special tribute to 
the Lakota code talkers.
  There have been other tributes as well. But there is at least one 
more honor the Lakota code talkers are due.
  I strongly believe that Congress should pass the Code Talkers 
Recognition Act this year to award our Nation's highest honor, the 
Congressional Medal, to the Lakota code talkers and all Native American 
code talkers who served in both world wars.
  This is a bipartisan bill. Senator Inhofe introduced it, and I am 
proud to be a cosponsor, along with my fellow South Dakotan, Tim 
Johnson, and others. A similar bill passed the House in 2002 but was 
blocked in the Senate by members of the other party.
  Historians can debate which code talkers communicated in actual codes 
and which communicated essential military information using only their 
native languages. What is beyond debate, however, is the courage of 
veterans such as Charlie Whitepipe and Clarence Wolf Guts and the 
extraordinary value of their wartime service to our Nation. Let us work 
together to pass the Code Talkers Recognition Act this year before we 
lose any more of these heroes.
  Let us also agree that we will honor the service of the code talkers 
by funding veterans health programs adequately, and ensuring that 
veterans in tribal communities have reasonable access to VA facilities. 
Let us also honor our Government's treaty obligations to fund Indian 
health care, so that tribal veterans and their families are not denied 
essential care.
  Finally, we should honor the code talkers by working to preserve the 
rich, ancient languages they used to preserve our freedom.
  Many of those languages are on the verge of extinction. Of the 300 
indigenous languages once spoken in America, only 150 are still spoken 
today. Of those, only 20 are still spoken by several generations.
  Experts warn that without immediate, dramatic action by Native 
Americans, tribal governments and schools, and the Federal Government 
to encourage their preservation and perpetuation, Lakota and all of the 
native languages of America will die by the year 2050.
  Language is the most effective means we have to transmit our values, 
our beliefs, and our collective memories from one generation to the 
next. For that reason, Native Americans and tribal communities 
particularly benefit from preserving the languages of their ancestors.

[[Page S8579]]

  But they are not alone. Imagine how World War II might have turned 
out had we not had the code talkers.
  In 1990, with Senator Inouye's leadership, Congress established the 
Native American Languages Act to ``preserve, protect and promote the 
rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice and develop 
Native American languages.''
  Last year, Senator Inouye introduced amendments to that law to 
support the creation within tribal communities of immersion schools and 
language survival ``nests,'' to teach these languages to the next 
generation.
  Let's pass those amendments this year. There is no time to waste.
  Let's also work together to adequately fund Indian schools and to 
include in all Federal education policies the flexibility tribal 
educators need to include native languages, history and culture in 
their curriculums.
  Indian parents, and tribal leaders and educators, in South Dakota 
care deeply about this. And President Bush specifically called for such 
flexibility in the Executive order on Indian education he signed less 
than three months ago.
  Soldiers go to war to give their children the chance to live better 
lives. What better way can we honor the code talkers than to support 
schools in which their descendants can learn the native languages that 
helped to save our Nation?
  The result of such efforts will be a healthier, happier Indian 
population. And who knows what we will all learn in the process?
  Mr. President, these remarks have been translated into Lakota by 
Elizabeth Little Elk, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. I ask 
unanimous consent that the Lakota translation of my words be printed in 
the Congressional Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Honoring Native American Heroes, Preserving Native American Languages

       Tunkasila Mila Hanska Oyate ki lel un gluwitapi. Na taku le 
     ecunkupi ke he, wiyan nahan wicasa le un okicize el un pelo. 
     Iyotan winyan na wicasa kowakatan unpi hel Iraq nahan 
     Afghanistan. Takuwe heciya unpi ki hena oyate ki nawicakinjin 
     pelo.
       Le hihani ki taku wan iwowablakin kte ehani wicasa eya 
     makasitomani okicize el apa pelo.
       Lena akicita ki tokeske wacinwicayau ki he ta wowiye ki un 
     woglakapi, ho nahan he un wicakpe ota nin pelo.
       Sina Gleska Oyate etan Wicasa eya makocesitomani slolwicaya 
     pelo. Ehani waniyetu yamni he han Tunkasila wicasa ki lena 
     wicayuonihan pelo.
       Sina Gleska Oyate ki isnalapi sni, nainjeyan lena oyate ki 
     pi Cherokee, Choctaw, Comanche, Pawnee, Seminole, Osage, 
     Kiowa, nahan Hopi akicita he tanpi. Ho, nahan wicasa ake 
     wanji Oceti Sakowin u pelo.
       Le ake wanji ki he John Bear King of the Standing Rock 
     Sioux Tribe; Simon Broken Leg and Iver Crow Eagle, Sr. of the 
     Rosebud Sioux Tribe; Eddie Eagle Boy and Phillip LaBlanc of 
     the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; Baptiste Pumpkinseed of the 
     Oglala Sioux Tribe; Edmund St. John of the Crow Creek Sioux 
     Tribe; and Walter C. John of the Santee Sioux Tribe of 
     Nebraska--numlala ni unpi. Charlie Whitepipe hecena niun.
       1941 he han akicita el ic'icu, hetan California ekta 
     iyeyapi nahan heceya un he han Pearl Harbor tiektiyapi. He 
     ihaniyuhehan Hawaii ekta iyeyapi, ho nahan hetan New Guinea 
     ekta iyeya pelo.
       New Guinea ekta un hehan wicasa wan Inyan oblecahan etanhan 
     itancan ki okiyaki na Charlie Whitepipe atunwan ki waste kte 
     cin Lakota ki lila wicasapi sni hanan waecun unspepi yelo. Le 
     wicasa ki waeyo hehan Charlie Whitepipe iyohpi sni cin Lakota 
     ki hececapi sni, eyas itacan ki hecetula ca Charlie Whitepipe 
     waniyutu num atuwan wicasa heca. Ho nahan, Lakota woiye un 
     wata wan el Lakota wan kici woglake.
       1944 hehan lila kuje ca glicuyapi.
       Charlie Whitepipe gli hahan taicutun na wakanyeja sakpe 
     icahwice.
       Ho hetan waniyetu wikcemna yamni Rural Electric Association 
     hel wowasecun. Ta cinca wan atkuku ki anpetu ki oyohi 
     wasecun, ho nahan anpetu wakan canasna tiwahe tawa ki iyuha 
     wakekiye awinca iye.
       Wana Charlie Whitepipe waniyetu saglokan ake sakpe. Lehanl 
     wicasa ki le nunhcan natakuni nahun sni icin okicize ekta un, 
     hehanl wanapobiyab ki nuge ki yusicapi. Wicasa ki let tiwahe 
     tawa ki tehkila.
       Clarence Wolf Guts injiyan nahahcini un, nahan injiya 
     Lakota woiye nahan woglake un okicize ekta wacinuanpi.
       Ta kola ku kici, Iver Crow Eagle, Sr., akicita el ici'cupi.
       Alabama ekta eye wicayapi. Heciya itacan ki wanji ablezina 
     Iver nahan Clarence Lakota woglaka nahan wayawa okihipi. Mr. 
     Wolf Guts oglakina akicita itacan ki lila oiyokipi.
       Clarence Wolf Guts akicita ota itacan ki omani. Ho nahan, 
     Iver Crow Eagle, Sr., injeyan akicita itaca wan ki cin 
     wasecun. Lena Wicasa ki tahansi kiciyapi.
       Waniyetu yamni Iver nahan Clarence wita ecehcel manipi.
       Lakota wowiye un wowapi wan kagapi. Le wowapi ki akicita ki 
     unpi. Anpetu wanji Clarence wacekiya, ``Wakan Tanka tanyan 
     waki hantas ohihanke wanjini cecicin kte.''
       Clarence wacekiye ki he osi'icu.
       Clarence Wolf Guts Pine Ridge ekta Tanya gli. Taicutun 
     nainjiyan wakanyeja sakpe icahwice.
       Lehanl waniyetu wikcemna saglokan. Akicita ki mani cansna 
     el opa.
       Tuwa tokiya Lakol woiye un okicize el un ki he Ihuntuwan 
     Dakota Oyate ki epi. World War I nahan World War II Lakota 
     woiye okicize el un ki ogahniga sni ca, lial taku ota ecun na 
     eyab okihipi.
       Lena wicasa ki toheki lila wohanke ki he lena wicasa ki 
     okicize el unpi, nahan iyeca hena hecunpi.
       Charlie Whitepipe nahan Clarence Wolf Guts wakanyeja pu 
     hehan Lakota ecela unspepi. Ho eyas, wana wayapi hehan Lakota 
     woglake okihip sni. Wasicu ecela woglaka okihipi. Lakota 
     woglaka hantas awicapapi naha tehiya wicakowap. Nahan hunh 
     t'api.
       Le iwanglakap cansna lila oyohsice na waste sni. Hehan Mila 
     Hanska ki Oceti Sakowin Oyate tehkiya wicakowapi. Lakol 
     wicoh'an ki unkip wacinpi.
       Lecel oyate ki owicakowap eyas hecana wicasa na winyan 
     ici'cu. Mila Hanska Oyate okicize wanji el iyab canasna 
     Lakota winyan na wicasa akita el eci'cupi.
       Akicita wan Sheldon Hawk Eagle eciyapi ca He Sapa National 
     Cemetary el eyonpap le waniyetu hehan le koskalaka ki okicize 
     el lecala t'e.
       Le 4th of July hehan akicita ki manipi ca ob wamani. Le 
     Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation el mawani. Hehan wicasa num 
     Iraq ekta okicize hetan glipi.
       He hanhepi hehan He Sapa ekta akicita wica uonihanpi ca el 
     waun.
       Akicita ki wica yuonihanpi ota, ho eyas, Lakota woiye 
     akicita ki hena isnala wicayuonihan wacin.
       Taku wan lila iblukcan ki he le akicita eya woiye ki hena 
     Tunkasila wicayuonihan ki waste kte. World War I na World War 
     II makasitomani akicita eya iwaglake ki lena woyuonihan 
     wakantuye ic'u wacin.
       Wowapi wan lel awahi, le wowapi tuweki iyuha ikipi kte. 
     Senator Inhofe kici, nahan Tim Johnson awahi. Waniyetu nupa 
     hehan wowapi lecel unkohipi, eyas hunk sam kahinhpeya 
     najinpi.
       Akicita eya Charlie Whitepipe na Clarence Wolf Guts oyate 
     ecetkiya waencunpi le un wayuonihan wakantuya wicun'kup waste 
     ke yelo. Lena wicasa ki ecani el un kte sni, ca le waniyetu 
     ki unkigluwitap na wowapi ki le unyuwastepi ki waste ktelo.
       Lankun taku ecun'kun kte ki he akicita ki lena taky 
     ewojawab ki hena wicunkub ki waste kte. Akicita okuju tipi 
     hena muza ska iyena yuhap ki waste kte. Lena oyate ki 
     Wolakota wowapi waste kte. Lena oyate ki Wolakota wowapi 
     wanji kici unkagapi. Taku wowapi ki le na eya ki unkinyejan 
     ecunkun waste ke.
       Na lena winyan na wicasa ki wicasyuonihanpi ki ta woiye ki 
     un inipi.
       Makasitomni lakol woiye ki lila oh'kankoya takuni sni ehani 
     kohta yamni woiye waglakapi le hanl wikcemna num woiye 
     waglapi.
       Tuwiki yuha takun ecunp sni tantas lakol wichoh'an nahan 
     lakol woye ki wanic'in kte.
       Lakol wicoh'an na lakol woiye ki un wakanyeja ki tan 
     icagapi. Lena ungluzapi ki waste kte. Lecel oyate ki niupi 
     kte.
       1990 hehan Senator Inouye wowapi wan lel ahi, ho ca iyuha 
     walakapi, na luwastepi. He wowapi ki Lakota Oyate ki 
     makasitomni lakol wicoh'an na woiye yuwas'ake.
       Senator Inouye nakun wowapi lel ahi he owayawa tipi ki lena 
     muza ska wicaku hecel lakol wicoh'an ki wakanyeja ki unspe 
     okte.
       Ateyapi Bush wowapi wan caje ki owa. Wowapi wan woiye ke 
     lena tanyan wacin kte, ca wowapi yamni el caje ke owa. Le 
     wowayepi ki waste.
       Akicita ki okicize el yapi hecel ta wakanyeja ki tanyan 
     unpi kte, na tiwahe oyunihanpi uncinpi. Le wowapi ki 
     unyunwastepi wacin.
       Le ecunkunpi ki hanta taku unkablezap seca?

  Mr. DASCHLE. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. I ask the Chair to notify me after 15 minutes of my time 
has expired.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair will so notify the 
Senator.

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