I have a copy of the book from my friend + ex-postmistress. We shared books in the past as both being bibliophiles, but she moved back to NM to be with her dying mother while still being in the postal service. She is Navajo+ sent me the book. Thanks for posting this; it is an incredible story.

Very moving for me. My father was in the battle on Okinawa and it effected him greatly. I remember the first time I heard of the Navajo Code Talkers, it was when I was about ten year old and he explained it to me. That was long before I heard again of them in media. I have incredible respect for that generation and their sacrifices for us.

The Navajos seem to get all the credit as code talkers, but about 65 tribes actually provided code talkers to the military. The first code talkers were 8 Chickasaws in France in World War 1. The Germans sent people to the US to learn Native American languages after World War 1. They gave up when they realized the number of different languages and the difficulty of learning the languages.

Understandable, as the European languages have at least a modicum base to start upon, Latin, etc., while the NA did not (from a Western viewpoint), that being said, there were way too many pioneers in our own west that were fluent in the tribes' lingua franci in the mid to late 1800s, albeit a vast amount was sign language, with a great showing of hands to add to the words. (One would think that the French + Italians would have picked it up right away )

I met a few of the code talkers out in North west NM on the rez in about '91

quote:

Originally posted by Jerry Fisk:
I met a few of the code talkers out in North west NM on the rez in about '91

I know and you couldn't understand them!

Hip