12 Native American Oklahomans eligible for special Medal of Honor Review

The research started from scratch more than eight years ago but Erin Fehr knew she could take on the task of identifying indigenous service members who fought in WWI because of the archive material at her disposal.

Fehr is the Assistant Director and Archivist at the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The center is home to the world's largest collection of Native American newspapers and periodicals.

"We realized that there’s very little information out there about any of the veterans that were native that served in WWI, and so we wanted to tell more of that story," said Fehr.

There was no official record-keeping of Native Americans who served in the Great War, so the research is tedious, and Fehr started with journals from Indian boarding schools.

"We knew that boarding schools were heavily recruited from," said Fehr, who added that the publications from many of these schools kept track of who was in the military and where those students were deployed.

Since 2017, Fehr and her team have identified 6,200 indigenous soldiers of the 12,000 they believe fought in the war.

But identifying them was just the beginning. The research center found 25 Native American men who are eligible for the Valor Medals Review, a congressional act that directs the Department of Defense to determine if service members were overlooked for the Medal of Honor due to race.

"Just because they are no longer here does not mean that there is an expiration to that valor or to that Medal of Honor," said Fehr.

VIDEO WEB EXTRA: The Assistant Director and Archivist at the Sequoyah National Research Center explains who qualifies for this special review and what makes these soldiers eligible.   

Twelve of the men eligible for review are Oklahomans:

William Penn Adair, Cherokee

Image Provided By: Cherokee Nation

Calvin Atchavit, Comanche

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

Alfred G. Bailey, Cherokee

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

Elmer Rowe Todd Beddow Morelis, Muscogee Creek

Richard Bland Breeding, Muscogee Creek

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

Nicholas Brown, Choctaw

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

Edmond Fobb, Choctaw

Jesse Albert James, Choctaw

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

Otis Wilson Leader, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

John Rupert McDaniel, Cherokee

Leo Maguire, Osage

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center

Roy D Trahern, Choctaw

Image Provided By: Sequoyah National Research Center via Julie Yardley

While all of the soldiers who fought in WWI have passed away, many of their family members still remember the service and sacrifice.

"He was a big man, he was over 6-foot-tall, but he had this warm smile, just very inviting way that he had about him," said Tewanna Edwards of her great uncle, Otis Leader.

She remembers visiting him when she was 8-years-old in Lehigh, Oklahoma and describes him as "Santa Claus" because of his booming, jolly laughter.

"He did so many heroic deeds, and then he was a wonderful person to boot," said Edwards from her home in Shawnee.

Leader was a Choctaw Code Talker who used his indigenous language over military radios so the Germans couldn't understand.

"Just that mere thing of how many lives these people saved because of their language that we were denied in our own country," said Edwards, referencing how Indian boarding schools didn't allow her or her family members to speak their native language.

Leader has many honors already, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm, just one of which would make him eligible for the Valor Medals Review.

Park University's George S. Robb Centre for the Study of the Great War is responsible for creating nomination packets for soldiers to send over to the Department of Defense. The DOD has up to three years to decide if any of these men merit the Medal of Honor.