"The language is Lakota, one of three dialects of the people collectively called Sioux, a tribe of hunters and warriors that once roamed all over the northern plains. The language is divided into three dialects - Dakota, Nakota and Lakota - but any person who speaks one dialect can understand the others.
Clarence Wolf Guts is an 83-year-old Lakota warrior whose ability to speak his native language played a role in defeating the Japanese in World War II.
"I helped win the war, I helped, me and my buddies," he said.
With a surname that many non-Indians in the US military found amusing, Clarence Wolf Guts took his fair share of teasing, but he soon found himself assigned with other Lakota speakers to a special unit.
The so-called code talkers would send and receive messages in their language. Similar programs were operated by the U.S. Marines using mainly Navajo speakers. The Japanese were never able to understand the messages.
It was dangerous work, often carried out near the front lines, where Clarence says he saw plenty of combat.
"We got shot at and we did some shooting ourselves. You know it is not easy shooting at another human being," he said.
Until a couple of years ago most people who knew Clarence Wolf Guts on the Pine Ridge reservation had no idea that he had been a code talker because he seldom spoke about it."
Get the Story:Last of Lakota Sioux Code Talkers Recalls WWII Service (Voice of America 9/27)
