Gilbert Horn Sr.

Gilbert Horn Sr. (May 12, 1923 – March 27, 2016) was an American military veteran who served as a Assiniboine code talker during World War II. Horn, a member of the Merrill's Marauders during the war, utilized the Assiniboine language to encode communications by the U.S. military in the Pacific theater. In 2014, Horn was named an honorary chief by the Fort Belknap Assiniboine Tribe, becoming the first person to be awarded the title since the 1890s.

Horn was born on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation of Montana on May 12, 1923, to Melvina (Tall Youth) and Jesse Iron Horn Sr. He was raised on the reservation and attended school in Dodson, Montana, until he completed 8th grade. Later in life, Horn had one child with his first wife, Elizabeth Bradley, and eleven children with his second wife, Elizabeth Jackson.

Horn enlisted in the United States Army 1940, when he was 17 years old, and was assigned to the 163rd Infantry Battalion. He was trained in both Army communications and encriptions. Horn, a code talker who spoke Assiniboine, an indigenous language of Montana, used his linguistic abilities to encrypt U.S. communications against the Japanese during World War II.

Horn volunteered for an assignment with Merrill's Marauders, a U.S. Army special operations led by General Frank Merrill in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, beginning in 1943. As a member of the Marauders, Horn completed an 800-mile march as across the mountains of Burma and southern China to cut off Japanese supply lines in the region. Fewer than 1,200 troops survived Merrill's Marauders' campaign. Horn and the surviving Maurauders were awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for "gallantry, determination and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions." Horn also received a Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart.

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