Jamie Allard: The last Eskimo Scout is gone. Alaska’s duty to remember remains.

By JAMIE ALLARD

Nov. 11, 2026 – This Veterans Day, I want to begin with a name every Alaskan should know: Herman “Buddy” Bendixen.

Buddy died at his home in King Cove on Oct. 26. He was 101, and the last known surviving member of the Alaska Territorial Guard. At 17, he volunteered to help defend Alaska during World War II. He later served in the Army and returned home to a life that included serving on the King Cove City Council and as mayor. What a legacy!

His passing leaves Alaska with a reminder of our responsibility to carry the story that he and his fellow Scouts can no longer tell us themselves.

The Alaska Territorial Guard, often called the “Eskimo Scouts,” answered an urgent need in 1942. Pearl Harbor had brought America into the war. Japanese forces bombed Dutch Harbor and occupied Attu and Kiska. For Alaskans, enemy invasion was something happening in our own territory.

More than 6,300 volunteers joined the Guard. Most were Alaska Native. Their ranks included young people as young as 12, elders as old as 80, and women. They brought knowledge that could not be issued from a military warehouse: how to travel, survive, and recognize something out of place along Alaska’s remote coast.

They served without pay and with limited equipment. They watched for enemy ships and aircraft, maintained vigilance around their communities, and helped protect the territory at a time when its defenses were stretched.

Their assignments also reached into the very machinery of the war itself. They helped safeguard the platinum mining area near the village of Platinum, protecting a strategic metal used by industry. They protected terrain along the air route that carried American aircraft to our Soviet allies through the Lend Lease program.

That route connected Alaska to the fight against Nazi Germany. American crews flew aircraft through Canada to Ladd Field in Fairbanks. Soviet crews took over there and flew them across Alaska and Siberia toward the front. Nearly 8,000 aircraft passed through that Alaska connection.

The Scouts helped protect a homeland that was also a lifeline.

Their contribution to Alaska extended beyond defense. Territorial Guard members and their supporters helped press for an end to discrimination against Alaska Native people. They had stepped forward to defend this country while still facing unequal treatment at home. Their service added moral force to the demand that Alaska live up to the freedoms America claimed to defend.

Yet recognition of their military service took decades. In 2000, legislation championed by Sen. Ted Stevens finally secured federal veteran status for Territorial Guard members. Stevens understood wartime service himself. As an Army Air Forces pilot during World War II, he flew missions in China and India in support of the Flying Tigers and earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Buddy received his formal honorable discharge papers in 2018, when he was 93.

I am grateful that recognition came during his lifetime, but I also am taken aback by how long he waited.

As an Army veteran and a sitting member of the Alaska House of Representatives, I believe that history places an obligation on those of us in public office. Recognition must be followed by attention to the people who served. Veterans should be able to obtain the benefits they earned, find care they can reach, and receive help navigating the systems meant to serve them but that are often exceedingly complicated.

Alaska has a particularly strong reason to get this right. Veterans make up nearly one in ten of our civilian adults, the highest share of any state, compared with about six in 100 nationally. Across our communities, military service connects generations of families. Some Alaskans leave home to serve and return. Others arrive on military orders and choose to build their lives here.

That tradition includes more than 10,000 women veterans who call Alaska home.

Alaska recognizes Women Veterans Day every Nov. 9 under state law. I thank Gov. Mike Dunleavy for issuing this year’s proclamation and calling attention to these women and their families. As a woman who served in the Army, I appreciate that recognition.

Women veterans belong in every conversation about military service, sacrifice, and the care our country owes those who wore its uniform.

This Veterans Day, please take time to learn a veteran’s story. Teach a child about the Territorial Guard. Reach out to someone whose service ended years ago but whose burdens may remain. Remember the families who endured the separations and uncertainty alongside them.

To Alaska’s veterans, thank you for answering the call. Thank you for the years you gave, the hardships you carried, and the service you continue to provide in our communities.

And to Buddy Bendixen and his fellow Scouts, now a part of history: Our children should know your names. We should never forget you.

Jamie Allard is an Army veteran and represents Eagle River in the Alaska House of Representatives.