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.

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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 tribe, Native Americans have long had a higher rate of military service than any other group in America.

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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 Cuts 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 Governments 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 160 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.

But they are not alone. Imagine how World War II might have turned out had we not had the code talkers.

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Source: South Dakota Genealogy Trails | Military Data

http://genealogytrails.com/sdak/codetalkers.html

Charles Whitepipe (1918)