Navajo Code Talkers

Throughout the war there were several crucial purposes that the Navajo Code Talkers and those who aided them were able to fulfill, and even though the code talkers didn’t know their special assignments at first, they still participated voluntarily. Navajo Code Talkers and other Native Americans mainly served in the same military units as white soldiers, since they did not fit into the all black units that were available. In addition to being assigned to white units, they were also required to go through basic training, boot camp, and eight weeks of intensive code training. In a June 1943 Arizona Highway magazine article, it states that, “The Navajo was born in the saddle, is inured to hardship, and with the will to fight, which all Navajos

This was based upon the problem and issue of mistaken identity, when there would be times where other Marines and American soldiers assumed that a Navajo Code Talker was Japanese and would try to kill or capture them. The use of these bodyguards was also put into practice in the event of preventing a Code Talker from being captured by Japanese soldiers, who would try to torture them for information on the Code System. While having assigned guards wasn’t a standard procedure, years after the war few veterans learned that there was another solider watching them. Bill Toledo claimed that he had never known that one of his fellow Marines was assigned to him, replying “I just thought that he was my partner, my foxhole buddy…I didn’t find out until 1987.” One guard was also charged with orders that he was to never let the Code Talker out of his sight and that neither one of them was to be captured. However, there many others who didn’t know anything about the bodyguards, such as Navajo Code Talker Keith Little who stated, “I don’t know nothing about bodyguards. The thing is, the Marine Corps also secretly had somebody watching the Navajo Code Talkers wherever they go, whatever they do. If a Navajo Code Talker was captured by the

These tasks included other orders such as directing shells, pinpointing dangerous areas, and spotting artillery. In addition to these tasks the Navajo Code Talkers were, like the other soldiers in their units required continuing their training, even when they were in rest camps. Navajo Code Talker Samuel Holiday when speaking about the war said that “training was intense” and their “training continued to prepare us for fighting on the next island.” Despite the intense military training, Holiday says that for him it was relatively easy. “While the other Marines were suffering from fatigue and sore, aching muscles it did not bother me at all. I was in good physical condition.” From the consistent exercise that they received while living on the reservation and intense military training, the Code Talkers were able to not only just participate in writing coded messages, but they were able to do perform other forms of physical exercise and tasks that were