Since both Veterans Day and Native
American Month are celebrated this month, it seems appropriate to share the
story of twenty-nine Native American veterans.
In early
1942, during the World War II, in the Pacific theater of war, the United States
could not find a reliable code for transmission. A small group of bilingual Navajo speakers
were recruited by the Marines to develop an unbreakable code based around their
language. This code was very successful, because the difficult Navajo language
could not be understood. All 29 members
of the Code Talkers received a Gold Medal.
Today, only
one of those Navajo Code Talkers remains alive. His name is Chester
Nez and he is 90 years old. Ever the
patriot, Chester Nez went on to serve in the Marine Reserve and fought in the
Korean War in the 1950’s.
There is a
monument to the Navajo Code Talkers located in Window Rock, Arizona.
By Lois
Jamieson
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