Members of the U.S. Navy and the Cherokee Nation came together on 12 November at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., to remember and honor Admiral Joseph James “Jocko” Clark, a Cherokee who was the first Native American graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. After serving in World War I and on board various destroyers, Clark became a naval aviator and eventually became air officer of the USS Lexington (CV-2). In 1952, Clark was designated Commander, First Fleet, in the rank of vice admiral. In 1953, he was transferred to the Retired List of the U.S. Navy and was advanced to admiral on the basis of combat citations.
During the November 2021 ceremony, Vice Admiral Jeff Trussler, a Cherokee Nation citizen who currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare (N2N6) and as the Director of Naval Intelligence, presented a naval cruise book that once belonged to Admiral Clark to Kimberly Teehee, the Cherokee Nation Delegate-designate to Congress, who accepted the cruise book on behalf of the Cherokee Nation.
