GRANTS, N.M. – August 14 is Navajo Code Talkers Day declared by President Ronald Reagan on August 14, 1982 by proclamation 4954. It should be a national holiday.
“Imagine being a high school Navajo boy in a boarding school in Tuba City, Arizona, being approached for a very secret mission for the Marines in Japan. A mission so secret officials could not tell you what it was, and you could not even tell your parents.
Twenty-nine of you are ready to defend your country and are gathered at Ft Wingate by the Marines. Soon you find yourself in San Diego. Your family still believes you are in boarding school.
You are allowed to look around San Diego the weekend but will start basic training Monday at 5:30 AM. You are given buckets of sand and sent running up and down the beach, then directed to a 30 ft. tower and told to jump into the ocean. Many of you have never seen the ocean and cannot swim but, fortunately, you are in very good physical condition. Soon Platoon 382 is in great shape.
You are gathered in a room and told you have passed basic training and are now a Marine. You are a warrior. You are told how the Japanese are breaking all our codes in the Pacific war and that you are to develop a code in the Navajo language to be used in the war, a code that no one could break unless he is another code talker.
You have been told in the boarding school you must speak only English. Now you must speak only Navajo and develop a code.”
This paragraph is just the beginning of the program presented by Judith Avila last year to Cibola County History Museum. The full program was recorded and is available for public viewing at the museum Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10AM to 3PM. There are computers with headphones for individuals or a computer for group viewing. It is worth your time.
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Code Talkers were an indispensable part of our victory in World War II. We should never forget them.