Sergeant First Class John Raymond Rice (Native American name: Walking in Blue Sky) (April 25, 1914 – September 6, 1950) was a

Ho Chunk The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago (referred to as ''Hotúŋe'' in the neighboring indigenous Iowa-Otoe language), are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iow ...

(Winnebago) Indian and a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

soldier killed in action while leading his squad in

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

in 1950. A

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury and Plymouth counties in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Iowa. The bulk of the city is in Woodbury County, ...

cemetery refused to bury his body because he was Native American, touching off a national episode culminating in President Harry Truman ordering his body to be interred in

Arlington National Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...

Biography

A tribal member of the

Ho-Chunk Nation The Ho-Chunk Nation (Ho-Chunk language: ) is a federally recognized tribe of the Ho-Chunk with traditional territory across five states in the United States: Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri. The other federally recognized trib ...

, also known as the Winnebago Indian Tribe, Rice was born in

Winnebago, Nebraska Winnebago is a village in Thurston County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 916 at the 2020 census. History The first post office at Winnebago was established in 1867. It was named for the federally recognized Winnebago tribe, whos ...

, and had previously served in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. During World War II Rice was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism during the New Guinea campaign. In the Korean War he was killed leading a squad of Company A,

8th Cavalry Regiment The 8th Cavalry Regiment is a regiment of the United States Army formed in 1866 during the American Indian Wars. The 8th Cavalry continued to serve under a number of designations, fighting in every other major U.S. conflict since, except Worl ...

, during the Battle of Tabu-dong "one of the most critical and heroic stands made by the hard-pressed

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

forces." During his funeral on August 28, 1951—at the Memorial Park Cemetery in

—a cemetery employee noticed there were Native Americans among the mourners. After the military burial service, including the ceremonial three-volley salute, cemetery officials discovered that Rice himself was Native American. They stopped the actual burial, and made his non-Indian wife Evelyn take his body away. Prior to making burial arrangements at Memorial Park Cemetery, the widow had already been denied the burial of Rice at the city-owned cemeteries because of his race. According to cemetery officials, "private cemeteries have always had a right to be operated for a particular group such as Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Negro, Chinese, etc., not because of any prejudice against any race, but because people, like animals, prefer to be with their own kind." The following day, August 29, then-President Harry Truman publicly reprimanded the cemetery and the Sioux City town leaders. Rice's wife was given a plot in

. The press and local groups in Sioux City also lambasted the Sioux City cemetery. Sergeant Rice was buried on September 5, 1951, nearly a year to the day after he died, in

References

External links

Sergeant John R. Rice
in "Notable People" on Sioux City History {{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, John Raymond 1914 births 1950 deaths People from Thurston County, Nebraska United States Army soldiers United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II United States Marines American military personnel killed in the Korean War Native American United States military personnel Burials at Arlington National Cemetery United States Army personnel of the Korean War Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska people

Biography

References

Further reading

External links