Louis Lucky Cloud was drafted in 1943 and served as an 82nd Airborne Division Paratrooper. Cloud, pictured here at age 84, was a warrior in the tradition of his grandfather, Pax-an-'pín, whose Yakama name he has taken for his own. On June 6, 1944, Cloud was among the Paratroopers who jumped into Normandy and seized St. Mere Eglise. He went on to serve in five major campaigns, including Operation Market-Garden in Holland and the Battle go the Bulge. Among his many medals are the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Cloud survived the war, returned home and served as a councilman on the Yakama Nation Tribal Council and fought for tribal fishing and other treaty rights. Cloud died in 2007 at the age of 87.
Approximately 25,000 Native Americans fought in World War II; 21,767 in the Army, 1,910 in the Navy, 874 in the Marines, 121 in the Coast Guard and several hundred Native American women as nurses. They represent more than a third of Native American men between the ages of 18 and 50, and compromise 60% of the population of some tribes
Credit- Brian Fitzgerald, Yakama Herald-Republic.