fort peck assiniboine & sioux tribes

WASHINGTON, DC – Leaders of the U.S. House and Senate honored Native American code talkers in a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony held in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.  The medal – Congress’s highest expression of appreciation – was awarded in recognition of the valor and dedication of these code talkers as members of our Armed Forces during World War I and World War II.

The term "Code Talkers" refers to Native Americans who used their tribal languages as a means of secret communication during wartime.

• Code talkers used their native language to create secure, secret communications that enemies could not decode, ultimately saving servicemembers’ lives.
• The American military’s first reported use of Native American code talkers dates back to October 1918.
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• Thirty-three tribes from around the country will be recognized and more than 200 silver medals will be presented to individual code talkers and the families of those deceased. Code talkers were sworn to secrecy and many of them kept the secret of their participation until they died.

There were 49 identified enrolled members of the Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, who were WWII Code Talkers. Our Code Talkers were members of Company B, 163rd Infantry Regiment, 41st Infantry Division, Poplar, MT.

At the conclusion of World War II, before demobilization of the Armed Forces, those that had participated in the Code Talker Program met and unanimously agreed that all who participated in the Code Talker Program in WWII would never knowingly or willfully ever speak of their experiences as Code Talkers. For that reason, the participation by the Assiniboine & Sioux, as Code Talkers in World War II remained unspoken and untold... until now.

Dr. Ken Ryan, the cultural historian of the Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes of Fort Peck, accepted the Code Talker Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of the Fort Peck Tribes.