Written by Dr. Farina King, Ph.D.
My journey to understand the Navajo Code Talkers began when I first interviewed my uncle for a school history project. Albert Smith of the Navajo Nation was born in December of 1924 in Mariano Lake, part of the southwestern United States. When he was a teenager, Uncle Albert volunteered to serve in the U.S. Marines Corps during World War II. He became a Code Talker, a man who used the Navajo language as a secret and unbreakable military code in the Pacific War arena. Serving in the 4th Marine Division, Albert faced combat and worked in military code operations on the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima, places where some of the most intense battles of the war occurred.
When my uncle was a boy, he was sent to an Indian boarding school in New Mexico. He shared how the teachers would punish Navajo children for speaking their Native language. As a
schoolchild, my uncle would speak in Navajo in secret to sticks and rocks outside.
He continued to speak his own language, which became his defense and weapon during the war. The U.S. military relied on this language and code to save countless lives and to support the war effort.
A civil engineer, Philip Johnston, who was raised on the Navajo reservation, proposed the idea of a Navajo code to the U.S. military. The U.S. Marines approved a “pilot program,” training a group of Navajos who became known as the “First 29.” Teddy Draper, Sr., one of the First 29, had similar experiences to my uncle's, remembering:
"When I was going to boarding school, the U.S. government told us not to speak Navajo, but during the war, they wanted us to speak it!"
At Camp Elliot in California, the First 29 had to create the code that Code Talkers would memorize and use for quick messaging under high pressure.
After months of training, the Code Talkers went into action. During the battle of Iwo Jima, Navajo Code Talkers sent 800 messages in 48 hours. The Navajo Code Talkers memorized over 211 military terms such as Ne-he-mah (“our mother”) for America, and there were over 60 words used in a special alphabet. For example, “e” was represented by ah-jah (meaning “ear”).
Major Howard Conner, the signal officer of the 5th Marine Division, acknowledged how the U.S. Marines succeeded in Iwo Jima because of the Navajo Code Talkers. Another military leader showed respect for the Code Talkers by calling them some of “the first truly All-American” military units because their “ancestors appeared on this continent thousands of years ago.”
My uncle once explained why he fought for the U.S. in World War II:
Some ask, ‘Why fight in the white man’s war? They put your family in prison, tortured them. They treated you as a second-class citizen without the right to vote.’ It is my freedom, my happiness, and my family too. I stand up for Mother Earth. She stands for my freedom. I can play, dance, sing, and stand for life. If I’m overburdened, I can cry, that’s my privilege. I went to war because a foreign country wanted to take my Mother Earth, my freedom.
My uncle emphasized that he fought for “Mother Earth,” a place that means more than national boundaries. Navajos like Uncle Albert shared the responsibility and duty to defend their homelands, along with other Americans, despite their diverse backgrounds and the inner tensions between them. My uncle's service did not erase the dark past of injustice and suffering that Navajos have faced, but his example taught me that different people need to unite and remember their common humanity for a better future—to protect and share our home, Mother Earth, together.