Code Talker

Instead of going to school the following day, Ned and his parents go to tribal headquarters, where he will enlist. When the recruiter asks if he is 17, Ned responds that he is “old enough to join the Marines” (57), and he is permitted to say his oath and join. On the bus to Fort Wingate, Ned reflects that his people were once forced on the “Long Walk,” which started in Fort Defiance and stopped first at Fort Wingate. Now, Ned is making the same journey, but “[t]his time we were going to fight as warriors for the same United States that had treated our ancestors so cruelly” (58).

The first night at boot camp is fairly uneventful; the recruits introduce themselves to each other and wonder what will happen next. The next day is a whirlwind. They are all given uniforms and hygiene kits, though Ned’s boots are too large for his small feet, and none of the Navajo recruits have any use for their razors or shaving cream. The new soldiers spend time being insulted by drill instructors and learning the routines of boot camp. Ned discovers that exercises designed to get Marines into shape are fairly easy for him and the other Navajos, who are used to physical labor.

Basic training involves marching drills, weapons training, and swimming, which proves more challenging for the Navajos, most of whom are used to farm work and have had little exposure to swimming. The swimming lessons involve blindfolding the soldiers, tossing them into a pool, and telling them to reach the far end. On his first try, Ned sinks to the bottom of the pool and has to be fished out. Though he is the last in his platoon to do so, he eventually masters the skill.

Many white recruits complain about the food at boot camp, but the Navajos consider it a big improvement over boarding school fare. It’s in the mess hall one day that Ned makes a friend he will keep through the war: a tall white soldier whom everyone calls Georgia Boy. When Georgia Boy asks Ned to read a letter he’s received from home, Ned realizes that the other boy is illiterate and offers to teach him to read. The possibility that a white kid could be illiterate surprises Ned, who realizes that, despite what Navajos were taught at boarding school, white men don’t actually know everything.

Ned’s platoon graduates from boot camp having earned the highest honors among all the graduating recruits. Unlike the non-white graduates, the platoon of 67 Navajos isn’t furloughed. Instead, and with no explanation, they are shipped to Camp Elliott, near San Diego. After a sleepless night in their new barracks, Ned and the others are given breakfast and led through a series of rooms and eventually to a classroom, where the door locks behind them. Ned is surprised when the seated Marines are addressed in their own Navajo language; he realizes the speaker is Johnny Manuelito. Manuelito is with another familiar Navajo soldier, John Benally. The recruits are given paper and pencils and told to write in English the words they hear spoken in Navajo. Manuelito and Benally collect the tests and then finally reveal the secret project: The recruits will be trained to be code talkers. A top-secret code has been developed based on the Navajo language, and the code talkers will learn this code in addition to every other form of communication used by the Marines.

The US military had employed a similar program in World War One, creating codes from Cherokee and Chickasaw dialects, but the Japanese have since successfully broken those codes. Navajo hadn’t been studied and was impossible for a non-native speaker to master, and so it was suited for code development. Ned clarifies that while some historical accounts suggest that non-native Navajo-speaking Marines invented the code, it was developed entirely by Navajo soldiers, who were the only ones with enough fluency to do so.

The code talker project is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Soldiers who learn the code are meant to memorize it rather than rely on any physical manuals. Ned speculates that some 400 men participated in the war as code talkers and that none of them ever revealed the program, or the code itself, to their families or anyone else.

Ned gives a short primer on how the Navajo code works. Essentially, a Navajo word is assigned to every letter of the English alphabet, with additional Navajo words added for the letters used most often. Code talkers add new words to their vocabulary all time. Ned spends his nights memorizing new words, and by day, he and the other soldiers are tested. Early on, the military tries to add white, non-native Navajo speakers to the program, but they are unable to carry a conversation in Navajo and struggle with pronunciation, and so they are reassigned.

Camaraderie builds among the soldiers at Camp Elliot, Navajo and non-Navajo alike. Once they begin to master the code, the code talkers are able to enjoy themselves, horsing around and even playing practical jokes on a favorite instructor, Corporal Radant. Ned describes his time at Camp Elliott as “some of the best” in his life (81). For the first time since being sent to the mission school, he speaks Navajo freely. What’s more, the sacred language is a valued asset in saving American lives and defeating enemies in the war.

Ned maintains the rituals of his tribe, taking corn pollen from his pouch every morning and touching it to his tongue and the top of his head as he greets the day. The code talkers decide to perform a special Navajo dance at camp out of appreciation for their instructors and non-Navajo friends. They dance and sing and drum for the rest of the camp; some of the non-Navajo men clap along or try to join in. As a surprise at the end of the dance, the soldiers sing a Navajo translation of the Marine Corps Hymn.