Attorney secures medal, benefits for Navajo WWII vet

[darrels joy]

Decades later, a windfall for code talker
Attorney secures medal, benefits for Navajo WWII vet
By JOHN W. GONZALEZ
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle San Antonio Bureau

SAN ANTONIO -- Fifty-nine years after he narrowly survived the Battle of Iwo Jima, Navajo code talker Teddy Draper Sr. finally has been awarded the Purple Heart by the U.S. Marine Corps.

The 80-year-old Arizonan also has won long-overdue veterans benefits for the hearing loss, temporary blindness and other injuries he sustained from a mortar blast in the 1945 battle in Japan.

And he credits both recent developments to his pro bono attorney, George P. Parker Jr., of the San Antonio law office of Houston-based Bracewell & Patterson.

Their chance encounter in 2000 at a lecture on code talkers produced a volunteer team effort that rounded up fresh eyewitness accounts and old documents and sought out expert advice to help Draper qualify for belated recognition and compensation for his service.

Draper and more than 400 other Navajos used their language to befuddle enemy efforts to decipher secret U.S. military communications during World War II.

Treated by battlefield medics who made no record of his injuries and promptly returned him to combat, Draper's requests for disability benefits were first denied in 1946.

"They shut me off right away," Draper said last week from his home on the Navajo Reservation near Chinle, Ariz.

"I appealed, appealed, appealed," said Draper, one of five code talkers in his immediate family.

Over the years, working mainly as an interpreter, he became unemployable because of his hearing loss, and he was tormented by vivid memories of the 36-day battle. Yet, his appeals for higher benefits were rejected until 1997, when he won a small allowance for his hearing loss but still wasn't rated as fully disabled.

"He had almost given up," his son, Teddy Draper Jr., also of Chinle, said. Then Parker entered the picture.

Working at no cost to Draper, Parker and researcher Penny Robinson clocked more than 500 hours over 16 months seeking to undo the string of government decisions that shortchanged Draper.

Since admitting its "clear and unmistakable" error in January, the government has awarded Draper nearly $80,000 in past benefits and increased future payments by $20,000 a year for lost hearing and post-traumatic stress disorder.

For the father of 12, who has 57 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren, it was a major victory, attributed to Parker's unexpected intervention.

"I honor him. He's a great lawyer," said Draper.

They met in Colorado, where Parker has a home, when Draper gave a lecture on the code talkers at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Cortez.

After Draper talked that night, another speaker -- longtime friend John Renbourne -- told the audience that Draper was still fighting for his benefits and medal. Parker, a labor law specialist who represents management, said his wife urged him to help Draper. Three months later, Renbourne contacted Parker to accept the offer.

Parker, a novice in veterans matters, turned to the nonprofit National Veterans Legal Services Program in Washington, D.C., for advice. Deputy Director Ron Abrams, who co-wrote a textbook on veterans benefits, encouraged Parker to pursue the case.

"Without George, Teddy Draper would not have been paid what he was paid. George was smart enough to read the textbook and reach out to people who do this all the time. With that, he really helped this guy. He changed his life," Abrams said.

"There's not a lot of money in veterans law. This is a good deed. But why not? These are our heroes we're trying to help," Abrams said.

Indeed, Parker said he, too, was greatly rewarded by the experience.

"Being able to help somebody who's fought for almost 60 years for his VA benefits and for the recognition that he was injured in one of the bloodiest battles in our history was very satisfying," Parker said. "He was basically helpless in trying to get through the complex VA regulations and statutes. He never gave up.

"We gathered medical records from at least 15 different medical facilities besides his military medical records, two or three VA hospitals, a number of private hospitals and Public Health Service on the reservation. We tried to go back to the '40s, but the records before the late '60s had been destroyed. That hampered us somewhat."
Wendi Poole / Special to the Chronicle
Teddy Draper Sr.'s attorney, George P. Parker Jr., works in the San Antonio office of Houston-based Bracewell & Patterson. At no cost to Draper, Parker and researcher Penny Robinson clocked more than 500 hours over 16 months seeking to undo the string of government decisions that had kept Draper from veterans benefits.


Among the steps Parker took to turn the tide was to submit or resubmit eyewitness statements from Marines who saw Draper being hit by the explosion that killed one Marine.

The attending medic "was very busy with mutilated Marines and may not have recorded Mr. Draper's injury," said Henry Hisey Jr. of Elkton, Va.

Floyd Holes of Portage, Mich., said he "witnessed a shell that landed on several Marines, including Mr. Draper. After treatment, Mr. Draper regained some improvement in sight and hearing but I observed that he never regained total improvement."

Those affidavits bolstered Draper's own harrowing account.

"When we landed on the beach at Iwo Jima, and enemy fire was coming at us, I saw many Marines die there on the beach," he recalled.

When one of his friends was injured, Draper said, "I picked him up and put him in the weeds, and then I was all bloody from his blood. I had the blood from my friend on my uniform for 36 days at Iwo Jima. When I closed my eyes, I would cry long after the end of the war."

"On one occasion, Japanese soldiers were coming out of a cave to shoot at us. I was on a cliff and shot five of them dead. That stayed in my mind, and when I was discharged from the Marines, I would think about it and ask, `Why did I kill other human beings?' Since my discharge, this experience has haunted me," Draper said.

He and fellow code talkers were barred by the government from discussing their secret mission until 1968, when the language was declassified and debate was ignited among Navajos about their role.

Draper, the son of a medicine man, went to one for insight.

"The medicine man told me that using the Navajo language to help kill people was the equivalent of a sin in Christianity, and that I had done a bad thing ... He told me that the holy people would punish me for what I had done. This made me feel bad about myself, and I would dream about it and wake up with my tears running down," he said.

Noting that he continues to have nightmares, Draper said "periodically I have gone through Navajo purification ceremonies to try to block the bad memories from Iwo Jima."

Though Draper still struggles with those memories, his outlook has improved with his recent successes. In December, the Marines formally awarded him the Purple Heart, and he received it, unceremoniously, about a month ago.

"He got it in the mail and he was really disappointed," said his son Otto Draper, also of Chinle, who has asked Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to make a formal presentation.

As a licensed counselor, Otto Draper's detailed report of his father's medical and psychological history was instrumental in the finding of a stress disorder which, coupled with higher ratings for his hearing loss, helped Draper qualify for past and future disability benefits.

Teddy Draper Jr., a jewelry maker and artist in Chinle, said his father has turned over a new leaf since he won the appeals. He remains a big fan of youth basketball and active in the Code Talkers Association. Draper also has a renewed interest in painting landscapes and -- with hopes of plowing his land and raising corn, peaches, watermelon and vegetables -- he plans to replace the tractor that broke down 20 years ago, his son said.

"This is his new life now. It's going back to the old way," his son said.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2449418

Code talker Teddy Draper Sr. used his native Navajo language to keep American military communications out of enemy hands.

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