Navajo Code Talkers: Unknown Heroes
Seldom has it ever occurred that heroes to our country, let alone in general, have had to wait decades for proper acknowledgement for their heroic deeds. This is not the case for the Navajo Code Talkers. These brave souls had to wait a total of six decades to be acknowledged for their contributions to the United States and the Allied Forces of WWII. The code talkers were an influential piece to the success of the United States forces in the Pacific. Thus had it not been for the Native Americans that volunteered to be code talkers, there might not have been such a drastic turn around in the fighting of the Pacific Theatre.
Prior to the use of the Navajo language as code there had only been one other instance when a native language had been used as code. It was used once in the First World War but instead of it being the language of the Navajo Indians it was Choctaw. "Wartime communications using American Indian languages had been successful during the First World War, one of the most notable examples being the 141st Infantry's use of Choctaw Indians to transmit messages in Europe"( "Coded Contributions" History Today, Jul 91). Even prior to this there are oral traditions about a secret Navajo warrior language that was used in the seven and eighteenth centuries. His coded language was used so that enemies would not be able to hear and understand what was being said.
The United States was in desperate need of a new code in the Pacific Theatre because the other codes were being broken and or took to long to be deciphered and passed along. "Previous codes were so complex that military leaders complained they took hours to decipher. The Navajos could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line ...
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...rtificate and mandated August 14th as National Code Talkers Day.
President Bush said it best at A Ceremony in 2001 "In war, using their native language, they relayed secret messages that turned the course of battle. At home, they carried for decades the secret of their own heroism. Today, we give these exceptional Marines the recognition they earned so long ago" ("Navajo Code Talkers Honored with Medals; Language Stumped Japanese during WWII" The Washington Times, 7/27/01). He is completely correct and it is sickening that his statement is true, because with out the Code Talkers we might not have won in the Pacific. Yet still we have the audacity to take mistreat the native peoples when they return home. It was not enough that we stole their land out from under them or made them live on reservations, but after they save our necks we just go back to ignoring them.
had to be spelled out letter by letter. The developers of the original code assigned Navajo
The reason why these codes were unable to be cracked was the language was never used before in war. Readers can tell that the japanese tried to crack it with a prisoner who was Navajo but even he could not crack it. In the text, it states that each message the Code Talkers write
The novel Code Talker is an account of a Navajo Code Talker and his struggles through childhood and WWII. The novel opens with a young Kii Ya’zhi, latter know as Ned Begay, being sent off to the white mission school. Throughout school Ned is forbidden to speak his native Navajo language. Later in the book Ned joins WWII as a U.S. Marine. He then becomes a Code Talker. Throughout the novel Code Talker, the author, Joseph Bruchac, presents a theme of perseverance, as Ned goes through mission school and eventually WWII.
In Navajo Weapon - The Navajo Code Talkers, there are some very important people such as General Clayton B. Vogel, and Commandant Thomas Holcomb.These two people are responsible for inventing the idea, The Navajo Pilot Project, which would be a vital part of winning the war between America and Japan. Vogel and Holcomb invented this language as sort a kind of alternate translatable language for the span of the 400 Navajo code talkers who volunteered.
Everyone has various styles of speaking and various ranges of vocabulary that they utilize depending upon with whom they speak. This concept, known as code switching, portrays an integral part of our lives in today’s society. The fact that different groups of people speak in different ways necessitates the use of code switching. One would not speak to a group of high school students in the manner that one would speak to a scholar, or speak to a prison inmate in the same regard that one would speak with the President of the United States. Speaking in standard American English and then in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or Ebonics, portrays the most prominent use of code switching in today’s society, especially among American youths. Today, people utilize code switching to associate better amongst a group of people. In William Wells Brown’s Clotel, code switching plays an important role in the escape of two slaves, outwitting a train employee, and simply showing the difference between a slave’s behavior with other slaves and the slave’s behavior in the presence of his owner.
In the first article “The lonely Eagles” by Robert A. Rose, D.D.S. gave me a great insight to who these men really were. The U.S. Air Force Association honored all the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII at the 2008 Air and Space Conference. They gave out lifetime achievement awards to all who were there. Retired Airmen such as Colonel Charles McGhee, Lt. Colonel Walter McCreary and Colonel Elmer Jones were there to share the spotlight they deserved. They left a lasting legacy to aviators and support personnel. In his book "Lonely Eagles", Dr. Robert A. Rose tells there story of America’s black pilots in World War II. The book is a story of true patriotism, remarkable combat skills. The U.S. Air Force Association express their gratitude and the nation thanks to these heroes for their accomplished and duty's more than 60 ago.
Code-switching is the switch between two or more languages or dialects, also referred to as codes, that occur when different languages coexist within the same community. I believe that code-switching is part of the everyday life for bilingual speakers in every community, which is very evident in the Hispanic communities in the United States, where code-switching is a part of their identity. When we use the term Hispanic communities we refer to a general community, as there are Hispanic communities from different parts of the Hispanic wor...
Over the year and a half between Pearl Harbor and Midway the United States made headway with various technological and military advantages. One of the most important of which was the code breaking efforts of Commander Joseph J. Rochefort Jr. “Most of the U.S’s information [on Japan] came from Rochefort. R...
World war II was one of the deadliest war in history that associated with at least 30 countries and estimate at least 85 million deaths. This war went on for six fatal years until Allies defeated Germany and Japan in 1945. Many as 500,000 Latinos and Mexican-Americans served in World War II, which impacted many of them in the United States. Mexican-Americans were drafted or volunteered for the military services. Many risked their life wanting to protect our freedom. For Mexican Americans, they faced many challenges during this war but shows how soldiers contribute, women contribute, what the bracero program did and the effects after the war.
Do you know how the Navajo code talkers all started? Navajo code talkers got introduced slightly after WW1. First the World War happened because the Japanese attacked the U.S. on December 7th, 1941 in Hawaii. That was a quiet relatively big event and was named the Pearl Harbor attack. Well the Navajo code talkers were a pretty big part in the WW2, so i’m going to tell you why. Slightly after the first World War Philip Johnston was very interested in the Navajo language. Well Mr. Johnston wanted to tell Major James E. about it because he thought it would be a good idea and they would be useful so he presented it to him. As a result got presented to him he thought it would be a good idea.
...op a Navajo code. The Navajo language seemed to be the perfect option as a code because it is not written and very few people who aren’t of Navajo origin can speak it. However, the Marine Corps took the code to the next level and made it virtually unbreakable by further encoding the language with word substitution. During the course of the war, about 400 Navajos participated in the code talker program. The navajo helped end the second world war.
Oral history teaches the Navajo be aware of changes in the land and to protect Navajo synecdoche by avoiding ominous threats like rodents (35). But more significantly, oral history, as taught by the elders, requires the Navajo to respect their ceremonial dances, winter shoe games, and spiritual artifacts by refusing to sell their culture for capital (39). Navajo leaders used this 1993 illness to evaluate ignored cultural values and use ceremonies to strengthen “familiar ties and relationships” (40). By neglecting their traditions, the Navajo were bringing destruction upon themselves. Elders also sharply pointed out that “physical changes in the land reflect a break down in the proper relationship between Navajo and mother Earth” (39). The destruction of the Navajo exists in the uranium mining pits, road and water projects and dumping sites, unless prescribed healing ceremonies and future obedience can redeem their relationship with the land and the Holy People.
The Navajo tribe is the largest Native American group in Arizona. They first descended from the Apaches, who came from the Pueblos, also known as the Anasazi. The Navajo are known for weaving blankets, raising sheep, and generally being a peaceful tribe. Typically, the Navajo tribe was deeply religious, worshiping their common possessions, such as livestock and homes. The Navajo women were primary leaders in society. The typical Navajo's life was a wealth of culture.
Although this idea had been successfully implemented during World War I using the Choctaw Indian's language, history generally credits Philip Johnston for the idea to use Navajos to transmit code across enemy lines. Philip recognized that people brought up without hearing Navajo spoken had no chance at all to decipher this unwritten, strangely syntactical, and guttural language (Navajo). Fortunately, Johnston was capable of developing this idea because his missionary father had raised him on the Navajo reservation. As a child, Johnston learned the Navajo language as he grew up along side his many Navajo friends (Lagerquist 19). With this knowledge of the language, Johnston was able to expand upon the idea of Native Americans transmitting messages in their own language in order to fool enemies who were monitoring transmissions. Not only did the Code Talkers transmit messages in Navajo, but the messages were also spoken in a code that Navajos themselves could not understand (Paul 7).
There have been many forms of codes that were used to send messages from group to group or person to person. One of the first know type of secret messaging was done by the Spartans of Ancient Greece around 484 to 425 BC. Secret messages were written on wooden tablets and covered with wax to make the tablet look like wood again. The message could then be read after the wax was removed. The slaves trying to escape used another type of secret messaging. Some messages that they would use to signal each other were quilts. Certain patterns on some quilts gave directions to these slaves in how to escape into Canada. In addition, they used secret words to help guide their fellow slaves to freedom. One such code phrase was "Follow the drinking gourd." This referred to the Big Dipper in the night sky. Because most slaves traveled at night because it was safer, that phrase gave them directions to their freedom. Those were just a sample of early types of secret codes.