World War II Veteran Gilbert Horn honored with Exhibit at Local Museum

This past year, Blaine County Museum has undergone many important and exciting changes. With the support of the Blaine County Commissioners, the museum was able to increase its annual budget to accommodate a second permanent position. The collection assistant role, which was filled in September by Olivia Finley of Chinook, will help the museum fulfill its obligation to steward its ever-expanding collections related to the history of Blaine County. In addition, this fall the National Park Service awarded the museum a one-time grant to employ Austin Haney, Bear Paw Battlefield's seasonal ranger, to work as an education and interpretation specialist this winter. Thus, a staff of only myself as museum director has grown quickly to a staff of three!

Both Olivia and Austin will be helping with the day-to-day and museum programming, including our upcoming speaker events and our Christmas scavenger hunt during the Parade of Lights (stay tuned). With plenty in the works at Blaine County Museum, I am most grateful for their help.

In observance of Veterans Day and Native American Heritage Month, I'd like to share with the community another of our upcoming (and very exciting) changes. Late last year, the family of WWII veteran Gilbert Horn Sr. graciously donated regalia, military medals, and photographs of Horn to be exhibited at the museum. Nearly a year later, the museum is getting closer to assembling this historic display. With generous donations from the Horn family, the Chinook Lions, and the Chinook VFW Post 4620 Veterans of WWII, the museum was able to raise $3,500 to purchase archival grade exhibit supplies to make this project possible.

For those who are not familiar with Gilbert Horn's story, he was born in 1923 to Melvina (Tall Youth) and Jesse Iron Horn Sr. in Fort Belknap (May 12th of this year was Horn's 100th birthday). He grew up speaking the Assiniboine language, and he learned English after attending public school in Dodson. Horn's enlistment card states his year of entry into the Army was 1940, and his birthyear is falsely recorded as 1922. According to this record, he claimed to be 18 at the time, the minimum enlistment age during World War II. Horn cited few opportunities on the reservation as a reason for enlisting so young. In a correspondence penned by Horn in 1994, he remembers his paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Standing Bear, singing an honor song as he and other local enlisted men marched from the Chinook armory to the train station. Gilbert's son, Curtis Horn, has told me that Kennedy's Bar in Harlem might display a photo of this historic farewell, and the museum hopes to include a copy in the new exhibit (call us, Kennedy's Bar!).

A skilled marksman from his youth spent hunting in Fort Belknap, he was selected to receive advanced training as a sharpshooter after basic training. Within months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Gilbert was trained in cryptology and became one of many Native American servicemen who would use his tribe's language to act as a Code Talker. In 1943 Horn volunteered for what would become a legendary special operations unit in the Southeast Asian theater known as Merrill's Marauders. The unit, numbering just shy of 3,000 men, included a campaign into the jungles of Japanese occupied Burma. The soldiers crossed the Himalayas on foot and endured monsoons, disease, and infections in the jungle. After a total of 35 engagements and the capture of the Myitkyina airfield in northern Burma, the Marauders defied all odds and defeated veteran soldiers of the Japanese 18th Division, though the victory was at the cost of

the lives of many. Horn was wounded four times and honorably discharged in 1945 with a Purple Heart, in addition to the Bronze Star and Distinguished Unit Citation awarded to all Marauders.

Despite Horn's sacrifice and remarkable service, when he returned to Fort Belknap he still faced discrimination and scarcity of opportunities. But he persevered, received schooling in business management, psychology, and legal work, and, for the next 70 years, he honorably led and served his community.

From 1945-2016 he served on the Assiniboine Treaty Committee, he was elected Fort Belknap Community Council Chairman for one term, and from 1958-1991 he served as a Tribal Council member. He was a tribal judge for 8 years and wrote the first regulations for Fort Belknap's Juvenile Court. He also lobbied in Washington D.C. for a new tribal health clinic. In 2013, Horn was at last recognized for his contribution as a Code Talker. That year, MSU-Northern also awarded Horn an honorary doctorate in humanitarian services. In 2014 he was named honorary chief of the Fort Belknap Assiniboine Tribe, a distinction not given in 125 years. Gilbert died in March of 2016 at age 92.

Blaine County Museum endeavors to broaden its representation of contemporary local leaders, and sharing Horn's story is a major step towards this goal.With the majority of the Horn exhibit supplies purchased, the museum awaits some changes to the display cases that will house the Gilbert Horn Collection. Anyone who has visited Blaine County Museum will likely be familiar with our current Native American history display and its layout: walking into the exhibit, there are two 7' tall glass enclosures built into the wall at the right, and one 4'x4' exhibit case built into the north wall at the center of the space. These cases will be the new home of the Horn collection. However, since they are built into the walls and require the help of a glass company to open, the museum is collaborating with local contractors to make these enclosures more accessible to staff – both for the assembly of the new exhibit and its continued upkeep.

Currently, these enclosures house parts of the Roland Carolina(o) Collection, donated by Ernest and Lucille Martens in the 1980s, the Ruth McClaren Collection, and the Ben and Margaret McKinnie Collection. Some of these items will be moved elsewhere in the exhibit space, and some will be placed in storage for the time being. So, if it's been a minute and you'd like to catch these collections before they are stored, pay us a visit soon!

We hope to have the Gilbert Horn Sr. exhibit prepared for public viewing by the early months of 2024. Your questions and comments are always welcome, so please contact us at the museum by phone (406) 357-2590 or email blmuseum@itstriangle.com for further information. If you have stories you'd like to share about the life of Gilbert Horn Sr., please reach out.