PHOENIX — It’s been over eight decades since Thomas H. Begay, 101, and his fellow Navajo Code Talkers helped end World War II using the same language that he grew up speaking – at home and herding sheep, he said Friday after a commemoration in Phoenix.
Begay, one of the last two living Code Talkers, made the eight-hour drive from his home on the Navajo Nation, the vast reservation extends into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, to the Arizona State Capitol. Dozens of descendants of the Navajo Code Talkers and others gathered to remember the Navajo military recruits who used a code based on their native language to keep military secrets.
“I am so damn proud,” said Begay, in a wheelchair and wearing a Navajo Code Talkers cap dotted with pins and a golden shirt showing emblems he earned. “We used our language in World War II and won the battles.”
The Marine Corps recruited over 400 Navajos during World War II to communicate confidential information using their then-unwritten language. It was the largest code-talking program in the military at the time. In 2021, Arizona became the first state adopting Navajo Code Talker Day as a state holiday.
Between 1942 and 1945, they sent thousands of secret messages on battle tactics and enemy troop movements and ultimately helped save the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers.
The program remained secret for decades and in 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation designating Aug. 14 as the official day to honor the Navajo Code Talkers and all Native Americans who served in the war.
“The U.S. was being defeated. Without that code, that war could have been different,” said Dawn Manuelito, a granddaughter of one of the first 29 Navajo Code Talkers who developed the code. “Our language saved this country.”
Navajo soldiers were sworn to secrecy
When the Code Talkers were discharged after the war, they couldn’t tell anyone – even family members – about their secret mission. The program remained classified until 1968 and then efforts began to formally recognize the soldiers for their contributions.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon sent a letter of appreciation to the Navajo Tribal Council. Code Talker veterans participated in the bicentennial parade in Washington in 1976 and then Begay and other Code Talkers made a written request for recognition that resulted in a 1982 joint congressional resolution and Reagan’s proclamation.
In the proclamation, Reagan also acknowledged that members of the Choctaw, Chippewa, Creek, Sioux, and other tribes used their tribal languages as effective battlefield codes in the two world wars.
At least 20 tribes have had members participate in the code talking programs, according to the National Museum of the American Indian.
During World War II, over 40,000 Native American men and women enlisted in the U.S. armed forces. Of the hundreds of Code Talkers deployed, the Comanches participated in operations in Europe, including the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
Advocates work to keep the legacy alive
Following President Donald Trump’s executive order to end federal diversity and equity programs, the Defense Department deleted thousands of pages honoring contributions by women and minority groups, including the Navajo Code Talkers and other Native American veterans.
Tribes condemned the action. The Pentagon restored some webpages, saying the Navajo Code Talker material was erroneously removed.
“They left their home, their sheep, their loved ones, to serve a country. They came back home and most of them have PTSD, like my dad. But they continued to do the best they can – and the Trump administration wiped them out of the map,” Ronald Begay, 70, the oldest son of Thomas H. Begay, said. “It just makes your blood boil.”
Laura Tohe, the Arizona poet laureate and daughter of a Navajo Code Talker, said her father went to a boarding school where students were punished for using their native languages. But when he joined the Army, Tohe said, he and other men were told that the military would use their language to devise a code.
“It’s a huge contradiction,” Tohe said. “Despite the complicated and dark history and relationship that we have with the U.S., these men were willing to step up because many of them felt like it was their responsibility to serve.”
There’s no dedicated museum to honor the group. Attempts to build one on the Navajo Nation haven’t come to fruition.
New Mexico officials announced on Friday that the state would invest $20 million in a museum in Farmington.
Only two Navajo Code Talkers remain
Thomas H. Begay grew up speaking only the Navajo language with his parents. At 13, like many Native American Code Talkers, he first learned English when he was sent to boarding school.
Begay left the Marines in 1946 but joined the U.S. Army a year later. He worked as a communication specialist and was a paratrooper during the Korean War. The experience in Korea convinced him to leave the military in 1953.
The other surviving Navajo Code Talker is Peter MacDonald. He joined the Marine Corps at 15. He was two years too young, so he lied about his age.
After the war, MacDonald worked as an engineer at a defense contractor company and eventually became a powerful and controversial politician on the Navajo Nation. In November 2017, MacDonald, along with other World War II veterans, met Trump in the Oval Office and shared the history of the Navajo Code Talkers.
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Associated Press writer Savannah Peters contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
