Rear Adm. Michael L. Holmes, a Lumbee from North Carolina,

was the highest ranking Native American in the Armed Forces,
until he retired from active duty in 2005. Here, as Commander,
Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, he speaks to Patrol Wing 11
personnel at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla., August 2005.



Lt. Michael Edwin
Thornton, a South
Carolina Cherokee,
received the Medal of
Honor for his heroic
action as an engineman
2nd class (SEAL) in the

Mekong Delta on 31
October 1972. After a

battle near an enemy-
occupied river base, he
rescued his seriously
wounded superior officer
through a hail of fire and
swam with him to safety.



Culinary Specialist 2nd Class Everett Jole, a New Mexico
Navajo and a Seabee with 15 years in the U.S. Navy,
takes care of supply stores for the Seabee battalion in
Iraq, May 2008. He is a nephew of Private 1st Class
Wilsie H. Bitsie, a deceased Navajo Marine code talker.

U. 5. NAVY SEABEES
NMCB17

THE O€SERT BATTALION
SIDEMINDERS - WE STRIKE FOR FREECOM



Joseph James “Jocko”
Clark, a Cherokee, was the
first Native American to
graduate from the United
States Naval Academy (1917)
and to achieve the rank of
full admiral. Clark earned

renown as a pioneer in naval
aviation and carrier-attack
strategy, having served in
World War II as a task group
commander and in the
Korean War as Commander
Seventh Fleet.



Command Master Chief Carl L. Dassance, right, an
Ojibwa, beats a ceremonial drum during the American
Indian and Alaska Native Heritage celebration on
board aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) in
November 2006.



Captain Trussler’s career included command of the fleet

ballistic missile submarine USS Maryland (SSBN 738). “If

there's one thing I've learned in my 24 years of service,”

he said in 2008, “it's that the success of an organization
is based on its people.”



Interior Communications
Electrician 2nd Class
Alexander Manygoats
explains the significance
and symbolism of a
Native American marriage

basket at the 2006
American Indian and
Alaska Native Heritage
Month event on board
USS Carl Vinson (CNV 70)
at Northrop Grumman
Newport News Shipyard.



Airman Christopher W. Soce, a VAQ-131 Plane Captain
and American Indian from Arizona, displays his Native
American nose art while serving on the front lines,
monitoring and enforcing Iraq’s 37th Parallel during the
final days of Operation Southern Watch in 2003.



Naval aviator Maj. Gregory Boyington, USMCR, an Idaho Sioux,

received the Medal of Honor and Navy Cross for shooting down

26 Japanese aircraft in a 4-month period) of World War Il ending

on 3 January 1944. After being shot down himself later that day,
he survived 20 months in Japanese prison camps.



Jubilant graduates of the United States Naval
Academy Class of 2010 keep the “hat toss” tradition
alive, marking an end to their graduation and
commissioning ceremonies in Annapolis, Md. The
class included 28 Native Americans.



Aviation Structural
Mechanic 3rd Class
Angelina M. Fernandez,

a native of Russian
Mission, Alaska, works in

the hydraulics shop of the
aircraft carrier Enterprise
(CVN 65), 2010.
Fernandez’s father is a
Yupik Eskimo and her
mother is of the Raven
Tribe of the Tlingit Indians.



A year later, Cmdr. Ernest Evans led USS Johnston,
above, and joined the task unit’s relentless attacks
against a heavily armed Japanese force in the Battle off
Samar, Philippines, on 25 October 1944. The heroic
performance made the Japanese believe they were
facing a much larger force, causing them to turn away.
Johnston took a pounding during the 3-hour battle and
sank; more than half the crew, including Evans, was lost.



Medal of Honor
recipient (posthumous)
Lt. Cmdr. Ernest E.
Evans Jr., a half-
Cherokee and one-
quarter Creek from
Oklahoma, vowed at the
commissioning of USS
Johnston (DD 557) at
Seattle, Wash., in
October 1943, “l intend
to go in harm's way....|
have a fighting ship and
I will never retreat from
an enemy force.”

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Each November the
Navy sponsors a
variety of cultural
celebrations to honor
American Indian and
Alaska Native heritage.

Chief Quartermaster
Eileen Squires, left, of
Iroquois and Sioux
ancestry performs a
Northern Fancy Shawl
dance at Naval Support
Activity Mid-South,
Millington, Tenn., 2009.



Marine Corporal Henry Bake Jr., left, and Private 1st
Class George H. Kirk, both Navajo code talkers,
operate a portable radio from a jungle clearing on the
South Pacific island of Bougainville, December 1943.



The Military Sealift Command dry cargo and
ammunition ship USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2)
moors at Naval Station Norfolk, May 2007. Her
namesake is the Lemhi Shoshone woman who

acted as guide and interpreter for the Lewis and
Clark expedition into the U.S. Northwest region.



Native Americans
in the
United States Navy

~~, NAVAL
HISTORY:
HERITAGE

* COMMAND *

www-.history.navy.mil



Boatswain’s Mate 1st
Class James Elliott
Williams, a South
Carolina Cherokee,
received the Medal of
Honor for heroic action
as a river patrol boat
commander in South

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
on 31 October 1966. He
led his outnumbered
PBRs in a fierce battle

against the Viet Cong,
destroying or damaging
65 enemy boats.



Yeoman 2nd Class Verna
Fender, a Native American
from Isleta Pueblo
Reservation, N.M., served in
the Navy from 1954 to 1957.
She suffered serious injury

during basic training at
Bainbridge, Md., but after
physical rehabilitation,
completed her training and
a 3-year enlistment in San
Diego, Calif.



Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Self-
Kyler, a Choctaw,
began her naval career
at the U.S. Naval
Academy, Class of
1999. After completing

a successful tour at
U.S. Third Fleet, in
2010 she became the
public affairs officer
for the aircraft carrier
USS Enterprise (CVN
65) and the Carrier
Strike Group 12 staff.



Command Master Chief Jim Fairbanks, a Chippewa,
right, of Naval Construction Battalion Center,
Gulfport, Miss., gives Master Chief Petty Officer of the
Navy Rick West a tour of the Seabee Heritage Center,
April 2009.

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Navajo code talkers—seen here marching in
formation at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in the early
1940s—took part in nearly every amphibious assault
of the Pacific war from 1942 to 1945. They transmitted
messages in their native language, a code the
Japanese failed to break.



Force Master Chief Charles L. Dassance, an
Ojibwa, assigned to Network Warfare
Command speaks with Sailors attending
individual augmentee training,
December 2008.



With a Choctaw mother and a
Peruvian father, Lt. Kenneth
Vargas is both Native American
and Hispanic American. He
served as a Seabee Combat
Warfare Officer and|in 2009 was
selected for promotion to
lieutenant commander in the
Civil Engineer Corps. “Our way
to serve our warrior spirit,” he
said, “is to join the Armed
Forces.” Here he presents the
Stars and Stripes next to the
Eagle Staff, opening the
American Indian Science and
Engineering Society s national
conference in October 2009.



One of the first Native
American sailors,
William Terrill Bradby, a
Pamunkey of
Chickahominy

(Lumbee) ancestry,
served on “water duty”
aboard several Union
ships and as a torpedo
boat pilot during the
Civil War.



Misty Dawn Warren, an
Oklahoma Choctaw, was
the 8th woman to be
designated a Naval Test
Parachutist. She also

tested equipment fitted for
NASA’s female astronauts
and supported NASA’s
Space Shuttle Recovery
Systems Surveillance Test
Program in Houston, Tex.

*
AWE



Midshipman Sandra
L. Hinds, Class of
1981, was the first
Native American

woman to graduate
from the United
States Academy.



Since 1776, when George Washington began enlisting
them for his fledgling Army, Navy, and Marines, Native
Americans have contributed their fighting spirit and
warrior ethos to help U.S. military forces defend
America’s national interests.

Freedom's
Warrior,

American
Indian,

a World War II
lithograph by
Charles Wilson



ys

Capt. Jeffrey Trussler,

an Oklahoma Cherokee,

is Commander Task Force
69 for the U.S. Sixth Fleet
in Naples, Italy, overseeing
submarine and undersea
warfare operations in the
Mediterranean Sea.



Commander John B. Herrington, a Chickasaw, shown
here at the Kennedy Space Center, became the first
Native American in space on 22 November 2002 on

board Space Shuttle Endeavour.



Aviation Electronics Technician 3rd Class Randy
Whitehorse troubleshoots equipment on an F/A-18C
Hornet assigned to the Sidewinders of Strike Fighter
Squadron (VFA) 86 on board the aircraft carrier USS

Nimitz (CVN 68), November 2009.



The guided missile destroyer USS James E. Williams
(DDG 95), seen here shortly after commissioning in
December 2004, is named after one the Navy’s most

decorated veterans, Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class
James Elliott Williams.



Sailors on board USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71)
perform various checks to ensure the readiness of an F/A—
18 Hornet at sea in December 2001. Native Americans on
the carrier include Master Chief Fire Controlman Grove A.
Calvert (Lakota), Air Traffic Controller 3rd Class Theda
Roulston (Creek and Seminole), and Airman Emmelene
Whitehorse (Navajo).