Meet Oklahoma’s “Ideal American Soldier”
Did you know an Oklahoman was chosen by a French artist to personify the “ideal American soldier” in World War I for the people of France?
Here’s his story.
Otis W. Leader was born in Calvin in 1882 and raised in Lehigh. He was of Choctaw, Chickasaw, Scotch and Irish descent. The Oklahoman from Aug. 9, 1936, tells the story leading to Leader’s enlistment: “… On April 5, 1917, Fort Worth, Texas, papers carried a story about suspected spies being trailed through the stockyards by secret service men. One of them was Leader. His companions were Arnold Arn and Karl Marty, naturalized natives of Switzerland from Chicago and owners of a Pittsburg County ranch on which Leader was employed at the time. They had accompanied a shipment of cattle from the ranch to the Fort Worth market and their brogue had excited the hysterical suspicion of the day.
“The following day, the United States declared war on the central powers. On April 12, Leader, then 34 years old, enlisted in the regular army at McAlester. By June, he was in France.
Leader and his unit, the First Division, were the first American combat troops. They were available for a July Fourth parade in Paris. It was at that parade that a French artist, Raymond DeWarreux, with a commission from the French government to paint the ideal U.S. soldier, saw Leader, and decided the American Indian would be his subject.
The artist produced a paper granting permission that was signed by Gen. John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force.
The artist described Leader: “a half-blood Choctaw Indian from Oklahoma, straight as an arrow and standing over six feet tall; keen, alert, yet with calmness that betokens strength and his naturally bronzed face reflecting the spirit that they took across with them, the spirit that eventually turned the tide.”
And so Leader had his picture painted and, according to the 1936 story in The Oklahoman, his painting hangs in a French military museum.
A 1968 article from The Oklahoman says another painting of Leader was painted by the Rev. Gregory Gerrer in 1922. Sources at the Oklahoma History Center said the painting was transferred to the Mabee-Gerrer Museum in Shawnee.
From a 1958 Oklahoma City Times story is this description: “The Doughboy proved his bravery and won a hero’s status in the fighting that followed. His machine gun company took some of the very first German fire to hit American soldiers, and three of his closest buddies were the first Americans to die in the war.”
In heavy fighting at Chateau-Thierry, when three of the four men in his machine gun crew were killed, Leader took up a rifle, went through the lines and captured 18 Germans.
Leader, who rose to the rank of sergeant, was wounded twice and gassed three times. He was in a French hospital recovering from shrapnel wounds he suffered in the Argonne at the war’s end.
For his valor, Leader received a Purple Heart, two Silver Stars, the Distinguished Service Cross, nine battle stars and two individual awards of the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military honor.
Leader also was one of the 18 Choctaw code talkers who prevented Germans from deciphering messages.
After several stays in a veterans hospital, suffering complications from his military service, Leader died in 1961 at age 79.
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Comments
Why doesn’t some one get the orginal from theFrench Government and it could be displayed for one year at the Oklahoma State Capital. It would not hurt to remind all of the people of this great state the quality and dedication of some of it’s citizens. It might even “fire up” a few younger ones.
Awesome article. Thank you Mary Phillips.