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10 November 2009
Veterans Day and the Navajo Code Talkers
Washington — American Indians have a long history of participating with distinction in United States military actions — an important point to remember on Veterans Day, November 11, and during American Indian Heritage Month. As scouts and auxiliary troops, Native Americans assisted U.S. troops in the War of 1812 and the Civil War and on the American frontier. More than 12,000 served in the U.S. military in World War I and 44,000 served in World War II, according to the Naval Historical Center.
The World War II Navajo Code Talkers are perhaps the best-recognized American Indian military figures. About 400 Navajo Indians served with the U.S. Marines, mostly in the Pacific theater, transmitting secret tactical messages over military telephone or radio communications networks using codes built on their native languages. The National Museum of the American Indian points out that the Code Talkers had to memorize 17 pages of code as part of their training. It was the only battlefield code never broken by the enemy. “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima," said one high-ranking signal officer.
The U.S. Army also used some Cherokee, Choctaw, Comanche, Hopi and Meskwaki soldiers during World War II.
The Associated Press reports that 13 of the Navajo Code Talkers are participating in New York City’s Veterans Day parade, the largest in the country. Only about 50 of the 400 Code Talkers are still alive, and most live in the Navajo Nation reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many are frail or ill.
Some of the Code Talkers’ stories are being preserved through the Veterans History Project of the U.S. Library of Congress, which welcomes stories, letters, videos and other mementos from all veterans about their experiences in World War II and every war since.
The site has collected about 66,000 stories so far. Its page on Experiencing War lists more than two dozen categories of stories that can be accessed online, such as prisoners of war, D-Day, military medicine and military intelligence. By searching the site, readers can also focus specifically on African-American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-American or women veterans, or on specific wars or branches of the service.
During November, American Indian Heritage Month, the Veterans History Project is spotlighting the Native Americans who fought for their country. “American Indians have eagerly served a government which did not always keep its word to their ancestors,” says the opening paragraph of Willing to Serve: American Indians. The site includes about a dozen links, including the stories of Dan Akee, a Navajo Code Talker, Marcella Le Beau, a nurse who served in Europe during World War II, and Joseph Beimfohr, who lost both legs to an explosion in Iraq this year.
In 2001, President George W. Bush presented congressional gold medals to four of the original 29 Code Talkers (one was too ill to travel and the others had passed away). Another 300 or so Navajo who had trained as Code Talkers received silver medals. There is more information about the Code Talkers on their official Web site.
Last year, 657,000 U.S. military veterans died: That comes to about 1,800 every day. Some are young people, and that loss is especially wrenching. But most are World War II veterans, and that is also a loss because they take their memories and history with them.
The Veterans History Project could be a good model for every country. “Veterans’ Wartime Memories Find Home in Library of Congress” tells more about the project.
See President Obama’s Veterans Day proclamation. Also see the blog entry “Honoring Veterans: They Made Sacrifices “Many of Us Cannot Begin to Imagine.”
