Let us be thankful for those who laid down their lives for our safety and freedom.  Let us recognize the great ethnic diversity of our American patriots.

Remember:

1. The Native Americans who assisted early European settlers in their survival in America.  Without their assistance, settlement would not have been possible.
2. The Native Americans who assisted during World War II  – Code Talkers (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker) 

• Code talkers was a term used to describe people who talk using a coded language. It is frequently used to describe Native Americans who served in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted these messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formal or informally developed codes built upon their native languages. Their service was very valuable because it enhanced the communications security of vital front line operations during World War II.
• The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater. Code talking, however, was pioneered by Choctaw Indians serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. These soldiers are referred to as Choctaw Code Talkers.
• Other Native American code talkers were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Lakota Meskwaki, and Comanche soldiers. Soldiers of Basque ancestry were used for code talking by the US Marines during World War II in areas where other Basque speakers were not expected to be operating.