Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War II by Joseph Bruchac is the book our group had to read. The beginning opens with Ned Begay’s time growing up on the Navajo reservation and attending the reservation school. The reservation is not like the school in Part Time Indian, the teachers constantly degraded the students and tried to stomp out their Navajo culture. The teachers would wash the student’s mouths with soap if caught speaking Navajo, which only encouraged Begay to continue to speak his home language in secret with other students. He would find this ironic later in life that the language the American schools wanted to so desperately stomp out would become the secret code America would use during World War II. The very code that would prevent America’s enemies from knowing their battle plans and help win the war. How they would become so important to a country that for so long wanted them gone.

Once Ned joins the Marines he begins his journey. Which our group discussed is similar to a Bildungsroman, a German coming of age story, the main protagonist being male. This is when Ned for the first time leaves his reservation and travels to other states like Hawaii and the many islands of the Pacific like Guam and Iwa Jima. He learns how everything his old teachers said were wrong, how his white friend Georgia Boy cannot read and how his fellow Marines treat him as an equal and a competent soldier. Begay learned most about different cultures and how our group found this to be a main theme.

Throughout the book we learn about Navajo Culture from how they introduce themselves to one another and the different ceremonies they perform. We discussed how every culture is valuable and should never be taken for granted. How a culture should never be snuffed out like how American tried with the Native Americans, you never know when you need it and we should all value our own cultures, despite the differences among others. 

Chester Nez

Code talkers 382nd platoon

Navajos Decoding

Marines had to cross the desert with only one canteen of water. No one but the Navajos knew the cactus plants had water inside.

Loading on a Beach

Iwa Jima