Roberts named First Language Speaker and Veteran of the Month

Wilson Roberts, originally of Bennington, Oklahoma, is Choctaw Nation’s Veteran of the Month.

Roberts began attending boarding school when he was five years old. After his eighth-grade year, he left school and became a general laborer until he was old enough to join the U.S. Army.

He entered basic training at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and attended artillery training at White Sands Missile Range at Ft. Bliss in El Paso, Texas. He was taught Missile Battalion training and trained as a radar operator and air traffic control.

In 1961, Roberts went to Korea for one year and returned to Gardner, Kansas, as a radar operator.

He worked at numerous bases, including Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Heidelberg, Germany, operating multi-million-dollar PXs. After his third year in Germany, Roberts started a club and began having powwows. He is still in contact with many from those days, enjoying MWR with other tribes.

Roberts was in Turkey on 9/11 and returned to Ft. Sill in 1992, where he managed the PX the last five years of his career.

He has been married to Sharon for 56 years, and they have three sons, 14 grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren.

The Choctaw Nation holds our Veterans in the highest esteem and appreciates their sacrifices and contributions to preserve our freedoms and the way of life we hold dear.