Code Talker

by Joseph Bruchac

  It seems that Emperor Hirohito did not know what was truly happening much of the time. Any Japanese defeat was too embarrassing for the military leaders to admit to their immediate superiors, much less to their divine emperor. The real power in Japan during World War Two was held by the Supreme Military Council, who assured the emperor that their decisions were best for their nation. While we kept secrets from our enemies, our enemies kept secrets from each other, lying to their own people about what was truly happening.

  One of the saddest messages we code talkers ever received came on April 12, 1945. As soon as I got it on my radio, I took off my headphones. I couldn’t talk. My throat was choked up and my eyes were filled with tears.

  Johnny Manuelito was my partner in the radio room that day. He put his hand on my shoulder.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Our FDR is gone,” I finally managed to answer in a choked voice. “The president of the United States has died.”

  It was a great shock to everyone. Few people knew how sick President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been. Now everybody knows too much about everyone, even the personal lives of our leaders. Back then, though, things like that were kept private. Many Americans did not even know President Roosevelt was crippled by polio. Roosevelt had been our president for more than three terms in office. People loved and trusted him. On the decks of ships and the shores of Pacific islands, Marines, sailors, and soldiers knelt and wept together in prayer services for our fallen president. That morning, when I offered pollen, I prayed for his family and those who loved him.

  I will tell you one story about Okinawa, grandchildren. It is one of my best memories of the whole war. A group of us code talkers had been able to catch a goat. We butchered it and cooked it over a fire. It was almost as good as mutton. Its smell brought other Indians. One of them was my Cheyenne buddy from Iwo Jima, Sam Little Fingernail, who was now a scout with the Sixth. As he cut off a piece of that goat he began to smile.

  “This makes me think of a story my Lakota great-grampa told me,” he said. “He was in the big fight when we wiped out Custer. But halfway through the battle, he rode over a hill and there were two other Lakotas sitting around a fire cooking meat. They had just killed a buffalo. So the three of them sat around eating buffalo steak before going back into the fight.”

  “Good story,” I said. “Now pass me some of that buffalo mutton.” We all laughed and laughed.

  For a time, on that faraway island, we were just Indians sitting around a fire and eating. It was like the old days, long before any white man’s war.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Bomb

  The Allied plan of bombing the great cities of the Japanese mainland had continued all through our invasion of Okinawa. From high in the sky B-29s dropped thousands of tons of high explosives on every Japanese city. Tokyo itself was completely destroyed in a giant firestorm. In July of 1945, Emperor Hirohito sent a letter to the Supreme Military Council, urging them to seek peace. They ignored his message.

  Then, on August 6, 1945, a plane took off from the air base on Saipan. It carried America’s secret weapon, a single atomic bomb. When that bomb fell on Hiroshima, it destroyed the whole city. Over 70,000 people died. Two days later, a second plane took off from Tinian and dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

  Until then, Emperor Hirohito had not spoken directly in the Supreme Council. But this news was too much for him. He went to the council in person.

  “I swallow my own tears,” he said, “and give my sanction to the Allied proposal.”

  Although the Japanese emperor was ready to offer unconditional surrender, not all of the military officers agreed. There was even an attempted coup, but it failed. Finally, on August 15, Emperor Hirohito spoke over the radio to the Japanese people, telling them that Japan was surrendering. It was a shock to those people in many ways, grandchildren. None of them had ever expected to personally hear their emperor. Remember that Hirohito was a distant god to them. They had never heard a god’s voice before.

  Of course, we code talkers were the first to receive the message that Japan had surrendered. It came over division radio early that night. Emperor Hirohito was asking for peace terms. I was so excited that I stood up and started shouting. Several of us Navajos were there by the radio and we could hardly believe it. I stuck my head out of the tent.

  “War is over,” I shouted to the other Marines. “Japan is surrendering.”

  Then we Navajos tore off our shirts and began dancing around. We headed right for the bandsmen’s tents, where we liberated some of their little drums. Each one of us code talkers grabbed a drum and we went dancing down the road, beating on those drums, yelling and singing in Navajo. Some of the other Marines who watched us shook their heads, while others joined in or celebrated in their own way. I think everyone had a smile on his face.

  How happy we all were. One minute we had all been at war and then the next it was over. There would be no more killing. I would be able to return to my beloved home.

  Ah, that was such a good night, grandchildren.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Going Home

  It turned out that none of us code talkers could go home as soon as the end of the war was announced. There was still work for us to do. Two Navajo code talkers, Paul Blatchford and Rex Malone, were reassigned to Army and Navy Intelligence and shipped out with special teams to Japan to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki ahead of our troops. They sent their reports back to San Francisco in Navajo code where others of us had been sent. I was one of those in San Francisco who received their messages. Those messages shocked me.

  Paul and Rex were horrified at what they saw where our two atomic bombs had fallen. All the buildings were flat and burned. Pitiful, injured survivors were camping out in sheds made from pine trees. Those sheds looked to Paul and Rex just like the lean-tos made back home by our own Navajo people. Many of those Japanese survivors looked so Indian that they might have been Navajos. They said it was hard to look at those people and think of them as enemies.

  Our leaders all told us that those atomic bombs were needed to end the war. That may have been so, grandchildren. I have no doubt that they made the war shorter. However, receiving those messages made me pray hard that such bombs would never fall on human beings again.

  A few of our number never left the Marines at all. They decided it would be a good career for them and re-enlisted. Among them were Bill Kien, Bill Price, and Dean Wilson. They became twenty-year men. Others joined different branches of the armed forces. Later on, in Korea and in Vietnam, Navajos would again use our code to send secret messages in battles. Some code talkers stayed on in the Pacific after they were discharged. They had discovered when they were in New Zealand and in Australia that they were not treated badly because they were Indians, but respected as Americans who fought in the war. They married local girls and just stayed there for the rest of their lives. Most of us, though, eventually got back here to Dinetah, just as I did when my tour of duty finally ended.

  Before we left the Marines, each of us was sternly reminded that our code was still a top secret. We could not talk with anyone about it. It was so secret that our real “occupational specialty” was not even mentioned on our discharge papers. Usually, a Marine’s discharge papers indicate what he was trained to do. Sometimes those were professions that were needed back home. Having it on your discharge that you had been a mechanic or an electrician or a radio operator could help you get a job. There was a special number for each type of work in The United States Marine Corps Manual of Military Occupational Specialties. Our number was 642.

  642 code talker: Transmits and receives messages in a restricted language by radio and wire. Sends and receives messages by means of semaphores and other visual signals. May perform field lineman, switchboard operator, or other communication duties.

  But that number 642 was not on my discharge or on the papers of other code talkers. As far as the outside world was concerned, I had
just been an ordinary Marine with no specialty at all.

  “You can’t tell anyone about what you really did, Marine,” my commanding officer said to me. Then he smiled. It was a grim smile with no humor in it. “But you’ll probably be hearing from us soon. We may be at war with the Russians in another year or so. You fellows will certainly be needed again then.”

  I prayed it would not be so and I am thankful that war with Russia never came to be.

  Some of us were not sure what we would do when we got home, and I was one of them. I sat in the bus that went from California to Arizona, just watching the miles go by. It was as if I were in a dream. After all our hardships in the Pacific war, things felt too easy now. Nothing around me seemed real. Then something happened to me that was all too real and it showed me what I had to do.

  I had just gotten off the bus in a little town at the edge of our reservation. I was feeling thirsty. So I went into a bar to get a Coke. I was still wearing my uniform. While I’d been in San Francisco and I wore my uniform in the street, people of all kinds would come up to me and say hello. Some would shake my hand and thank me for fighting for our country. Now that I was almost home it was different.

  The bartender, a big bilagáanaa with a red, sweaty face, glared at me.

  “Can’t you read, you stupid Navajo?” he said, pointing at a sign hung over the bar. It said NO INDIANS SERVED HERE. Two other white customers along the bar glared at me as I read the sign aloud.

  “I don’t want an Indian,” I said. “I’m just a thirsty Marine who wants a Coke.”

  They didn’t laugh at my joke. The bartender and the two other white men just grabbed me and threw me out into the street. I did not try to fight them. Even though I was small, I was strong and I had been trained as a Marine. I could have given them a real fight. But I understood it would not accomplish anything. I walked away, having realized something.

  Although I had changed, the things that had made me feel sad and ashamed when I was a child in boarding school had stayed the same. It didn’t matter that I had fought for America. It didn’t matter that I had made white friends who would have sacrificed their lives to save me when we were at war. In the eyes of those prejudiced bilagáanaas in that bar, I was just another stupid Navajo.

  But I did not walk away thinking that things were hopeless. I did not try to find a bar that would sell an Indian liquor so that I could lose my sorrows by drinking. I had learned to be self-confident as a Marine, to believe that I could succeed even in the hardest battle. Now I had another battle ahead of me, one that could be fought in another way.

  I could go back and finish my last year of high school. I could take advantage of that G.I. Bill the other Marines had spoken about. I could go on to college and become a teacher. I could learn how to teach our language to our children. I could also learn more about history so that I could understand things and help our children to understand by reminding them to never forget our language and our culture. And that is what I did.

  It was not easy and I did not do it quickly. For one thing, I still had to be healed. Those of us who came back to Dinetah from the war were all wounded, not just in our bodies, but in our minds and our spirits. You know that our Navajo way is to be quiet and modest. So when we Navajo soldiers came back, there were no parties or big parades for us as there were for the bilagáanaa G.I.s in their hometowns. We Navajos were just expected to fit back in.

  I began to have awful nightmares. I woke up from seeing men die and hearing the sounds of their cries. Exploding shells burst in my dreams as wave after wave of screaming enemy soldiers came at me.

  But although I had no victory parades, I had something else. I had my family and our traditional ceremonies. I had the Holy People to help me. Finally, when it seemed I was about to go crazy, my family insisted that I have an Enemyway. My old friend Hosteen Mitchell made all the arrangements and the ceremony was done for me.

  It brought me back into balance. I know just the moment when that happened. It was during the first night of my Enemyway when everything was quiet. As I was sitting and waiting for the next part of the ceremony to begin I closed my eyes and I was back on Bougainville.

  It was night on the island. We were surrounded by the enemy. Smitty was sound asleep beside me. Then I heard singing in Navajo. Was I awake or dreaming? I floated out of my foxhole, right into the jungle. The moonlight was bright and everything around me that had seemed strange and threatening was now beautiful. Every leaf, every flower, every small creature that crawled or flew was beautiful. Even the leeches and mosquitoes that wanted to suck my blood, even the land crabs whose shells sparkled like turquoise in the moonlight no longer seemed alien to me. Everything was just the way it should be and all was in perfect balance. Then someone was shaking my shoulder. I was back in the foxhole. It was morning. Smitty was telling me the Japanese were gone. They had pulled back. We were safe.

  I closed my eyes in relief and heard that singing voice in Navajo again. This time when I opened my eyes, I was home, truly home. Big Schoolboy was shaking his rattle and I was at peace. My balance had been restored. I could go forward on a path of beauty.

  Through all the years that we kept our secret about having been code talkers, I worked hard for our people as a teacher and a member of our community. All around me I saw other code talkers doing the same, each in his own way. Some went to colleges and universities and training schools. Some became engineers or business owners or artists. It was not easy. In some ways that G.I. Bill was not fair to us Navajos. Other ex-servicemen could use it to help them build or buy their own homes, but not us.

  Smitty and Georgia Boy both sent me photos of their new homes. I wrote back and congratulated them without telling them that I could never do what they had done. It didn’t work that way for Indians. Because the houses we wanted to build would be on Indian reservations, we were refused help. We could only build or buy a home outside of our sacred homeland. Just like many other things in the bilagáanaa world, that housing rule was unfair to Indians.

  However, I never gave up. I just became more determined. I took part in tribal government, working for education reform on our reservation. Although I did not accomplish as much as I had hoped, I am proud of the things that I did over the years.

  Finally, in 1969, we were told that we could speak about being code talkers. New computers were more efficient than people in sending and receiving code. Our story was declassified. We formed a Code Talkers Association and began having meetings. Books were written about us and we were invited to speak at special events. We were invited to the White House by one president after another. We were given medals like this one.

  All of that was good, grandchildren. But more important than any praise was the fact that we could now tell this story. We could tell our children and our grandchildren about the way our sacred language helped this country.

  So, my grandchildren, that is the tale this medal has helped me to tell. It is not just my story, but a story of our people and of the strength that we gain from holding on to our language, from being Dine’. I pray that none of you will ever have to go into battle as I did. I also pray that you will fight to keep our language, to hold on to it with the same warrior spirit that our Indian people showed in that war. Let our language keep you strong and you will never forget what it is to be Navajo. You will never forget what it means to walk in beauty.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Who Are the Navajos?

  Before speaking about this novel, I need to say a few words about the history and present circumstances of the Navajos, those who call themselves Dine’, a word meaning “The People.”

  Ethnologists tells us that the distant ancestors of the Navajos came into the Southwest 1,000 or more years ago. That may be so, for their language links them with the Athabaskan people of Alaska. The Navajos themselves say that they emerged into this world from a hole in the earth and that this world is only one of a number they have lived on until catastrophic events forced them to l
eave.

  The place where they arrived is an area bounded by four sacred mountains, now known as the Four Corners area, where the present-day states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah come together. It is seen by them as a giant house or hogan. The sky is its roof, the earth is its floor, and those mountains are the house poles.

  That image alone should be enough to make anyone realize how deeply spiritual and poetic Navajo traditions are. Those traditions appear to be related to those of the Pueblo nations of the Southwest. They include incredibly beautiful chants used in healing ceremonies in which they appeal to the sacred spirits, their “Holy People.” Translations into English of some of those chants, or “Ways,” are today some of the best-known examples of American Indian oral tradition:

  Beauty above me I walk

  Beauty below me I walk

  Beauty behind me I walk

  Beauty before me I walk

  Beauty all around me I walk

  In beauty all is restored

  In beauty all is made whole

  Some historians have characterized the Navajos as warlike raiders, preying on the other tribes in their region. I do not believe this is accurate, especially when one considers the importance of balance and peace in the sacred ways of the Dine’. The arrival of the Spanish appears to have deeply upset the balance within and between the native nations of the Southwest. The Spanish also introduced widespread slavery. Throughout the Mexican southwest that later became New Mexico, countless thousands of American Indians were captured and forced to work in the mines or as personal slaves. Virtually every Spanish household had its complement of Indian slaves. Navajo resistance to the slave trade was described as raiding by the Spanish.