Six Marines are credited with saving the lives of countless comrades and securing an American victory during the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. These six, part of 29 original Navajo code talkers, decoded more than 800 coded messages during the first 48 hours of the battle.
The Inspiration:
Early in 1942, Philip Johnson, the child of missionaries on a Navajo reservation, a World War I veteran and a fluent speaker of Navajo, met with Maj. Gen. Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, to pitch the idea of developing an unbreakable code using the Navajo language for use during World War II, according to a report on the subject, available on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Web site.
Johnson pointed out the language, which is unwritten and contains variations in syntax, dialect and tonal qualities, would be indecipherable to someone who didn’t know the language.
Johnson also showed Vogel it was possible to send and decode a coded message in about 20 seconds, whereas the then current method of sending and decoding took about 30 minutes. Vogel went for it.
The First Steps:
The 29 Navajos recruited as the initial code talkers arrived at Camp Elliot, located near San Diego, after recruit training to put together a new code. The code was made more complex with the inclusion of a word substitution system, according to the Web site.
“For us, everything is memory. It’s part of our heritage,” said Carl Gorman, one of the original 29 code talkers, when asked why Navajos were able to memorize the code as quickly as they did, as stated in Marine Administrative Message 0634/09, which recognizes November as National Native American Heritage Month. “We have no written language. Our songs, our prayers, our stories - they’re all handed down from grandfather to children and we listen, we hear, we learn to remember everything.”
The Code:
Once each line of code was translated into English, the Marines pieced together the whole message using only the first letter of each of the translated words. To spell “Army,” a code talker might send “wol-la-chee (ant) gah (rabbit) na-as-tso-si (mouse) tsah-as-zih (yucca),” according to the Navajo code talker’s dictionary, available on www.history.navy.mil.
Each letter had several words associated with it. “A” was represented by “wol-la-chee (ant),” “be-la-sana (apple)” and “tse-nill (axe).” There was also a specialized list of words to represent common military terms, as listed in the dictionary. For example, the code word for “battleship” is “lo-tso,” literally translated as whale.
The dictionary, which originally contained 211 words, included 411 by the war end, according to the CIA Web site.
The Impact:
At first, some military leaders were skeptical about the new system. According to the CIA’s report, the code talkers were tested before being trusted with combat related messages. They proved themselves by sending, receiving and decoding the messages in record time and without error.
“Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima,” said then Maj. Howard Connor, the signal officer for 5th Marine Division at the Battle of Iwo Jima, according to www.navajo.org. Navajo code talkers were a key component of many of the major battles in the Pacific, including Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Peleliu.
The Recognition:
The world wouldn’t know the part Navajo code talkers played until 1968, when the code was declassified. In 1982, former President Ronald Reagan dubbed Aug. 14 “Navajo Code Talkers Day.”
Their story and the contributions of Native Americans across the nation are also remembered during each National Native American Heritage Month.
“This month, we celebrate the ancestry and time honored traditions of American Indians and Alaska Natives in North America. They have guided our land stewardship policies, added immeasurably to our cultural heritage and demonstrated courage in the face of adversity,” said President Barack Obama in a proclamation officially naming this month as National Native American Heritage Month 2009.
The Legacy Upheld:
Today, there are 2,409 Native Americans serving as active duty Marines and 1,508 Native Americans serving in the Marine Corps Reserve, according to Headquarters Marine Corps. So far, 5,509 active duty and reserve Native American Marines have served in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
KIRKUK, Iraq — The U.S. military role remains critical to preserving gains made in Iraq and helping to prevent sectarian violence in the roll-up to Iraq’s national elections, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told approximately 300 Soldiers and Airmen at a town hall session at Forward Operating Base Warrior.
“Whether you are just rotating in or rotating out, you may have noticed that this theater has largely disappeared from the headlines,” Gates said, calling it the result of tremendous contributions U.S. service members have made.
“That doesn’t mean this theater is not important,” Gates told the group, a mix of Soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade and 1st Armored Division’s 1st Brigade, and Airmen from the 506th Air Expeditionary Group. “Your mission here is still critical to preserving the gains of recent years.”
Gates noted that Forward Operating Base Warrior, a former Iraqi military facility just west of Kirkuk, stands at a fault line between Iraq’s Arab-led central government and the self-ruled Kurdish region in the north. The secretary called this rift “perhaps the most worrisome issue here in Iraq,” and said the military role here will be increasingly important in keeping it in check during and immediately after the March 7 elections.
“Your role here in fostering cooperation here is essential in ensuring a credible election and transfer of power,” he told the group.
Gates emphasized the importance of resolving Arab-Kurd tensions throughout his two-day visit here, in meetings with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the Iraqi Presidency Council, and earlier with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. After his visit to Warrior, Gates traveled to Irbil to deliver the same message to Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government President Massaoud Barzani.
Despite concerns, Gates told the troops, he’s impressed by signs of progress during the past 18 months on both sides of the issue. “I think there is no question that the Kurds see their future as part of a unified Iraq,” he said. “What is at issue is the terms on which that goes forward. That is negotiable.”
That progress has accelerated in recent weeks, he said, passing much of the credit to Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, and the U.S. Embassy Baghdad staff, who are promoting dialog between Kurds and central Iraqi government.
Both Barzani and Maliki have asked Odierno for help in brokering a security architecture to resolve the frictions, Army Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, told reporters traveling with Gates during a media roundtable yesterday. That effort, still in the works, aims to “establish an environment where there is trust and confidence and security, to allow a peaceful election and a secure environment for political dialog to continue,” Jacoby said.
“We are working toward that, and we are making progress,” he said. “It is not a done deal yet. But I will tell you the act of interest and trust by those two leaders has led to greater cooperation within the disputed internal boundaries amongst all parties. … Every side is committed to one thing, and that is the security of the Iraqi people.”
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KIRKUK, Iraq — The U.S. military role remains critical to preserving gains made in Iraq and helping to prevent sectarian violence in the roll-up to Iraq’s national elections, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told approximately 300 Soldiers and Airmen at a town hall session at Forward Operating Base Warrior. 
