Ha-kaz dineh-ih be-hay-jah

Ado ta aokhek-ash-shen

Adam Beach, left, and Roger Willie star in the feature film Windtalkers.

Do ni-din-da-hi ol-yeh

Washindon be Akalh-bi Khos

Translation from Navajo:

From northern lands

To southern tropic scenes,

Two Marine Code Talkers relay orders in the South Pacific in 1943.

We are known to be tireless

The United States Marines

a stanza from the Marine Hymn

In 1942 the war in the Pacific theater was intensifying.

The Japanese had a seemingly impenetrable foothold upon the hundreds of islands stretched between Honolulu and Tokyo. The American incursion into these areas was being hindered by the fact the Japanese had cracked every code that had been adopted.

Then came the Navajo code talkers.

“It was a precious language,” said Thomas H. Begay, a Marine code talker from 1943 to 1945. “And nobody except the code talkers knew all the code, because Navajos do everything by memory: prayers, singing.”

A Silver Medal pays tribute to Navajo code talkers.

The Navajo Indian language had no written application, and it was without symbols or an alphabet. The labyrinthine syntax represented a purely oral way of conversing that was limited to a specific body of people.

Men from the Navajo-rich regions of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah left their homes and joined the war effort, bringing their language with them as a new weapon of defense.

The code talkers learned to transmit and decipher crucial information in the span of 30 seconds that had previously taken encryption devices a half hour. With this covert skill, the military found a way to instantly communicate troop movements and assault tactics without fear of countermeasures by the enemy.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Begay. “A lot of Navajos failed. Out of 100, about 30 Navajos failed to go through the training. They were assigned to other jobs like stretcher bearer or ammo man. That’s how difficult it was.”

The first group of Navajos established 211 code words from June to September of 1942. For instance, the word for “Chicken Hawk” (Gini) substituted for a Dive Bomber plane. Other words were chosen for their phonetic similarity, such as “Task” (Tazi-na-eh-dil-kid) being a combination of “Turkey Ask.”

Begay was part of the second wave to go overseas, helping to develop an additional 297 words.

“I’m really proud to be part of it,” Begay explained. “‘Beyond the call of duty’ we called it, although a lot of people don’t think so. We were put in for the Congressional Medal of Honor, but there was some jealous people who say, ‘Navajo code talkers don’t deserve that.’ But we lost Navajos. In our unit we had three wounded and two killed the first day.

Thomas H. Begay gives a code-sending demo during a 1975 ceremony honoring veterans.

“We need a lot of people to understand what we did for our country.”

Begay is getting his wish. The remarkable story is now the subject of a feature film that opens today. “Windtalkers” stars Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach and Christian Slater in the story of a Marine unit that implements the code while battling on the Japanese-held island of Saipan.

Begay, was among the Navajo veterans invited to attend a screening of “Windtalkers” last month. Unfortunately, Hollywood’s spin on the tale didn’t entirely impress him.

“To be honest … it tells the story of what we did,” he started off diplomatically. “Maybe it’s the only way to let the American people know that the Indian people didn’t sit back and let the war go by. We all volunteered and went there. But as far as the movie, it’s a lot of action. I guess that’s the latest way for the new generation. They like that kind of movie. But there was too much R-rated killing.”

Beyond the violence, Begay also was disappointed in another fundamental element of the story.

“It limited the emphasis on how we made the code and how we used it in actual combat,” he said.

Marine life

Begay joined the Marines in 1943 at the age of 16 (claiming he was older) to be an aerial gunner. He assumed he would be assigned to gunnery school but received orders to report elsewhere. Soon he was stationed at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif., along with a barracks full of other Navajo, none of whom he knew.

	Deciphering the code Military Term Navajo Equivalent English Translation Aircraft Carrier Tsidi-ney-ye-hi Bird Carrier Artillery Be-al-doh-tso-lani Many Big Guns Assault Altseh-e-jah-he First Striker Battleship Lo-tso Whale Captain Besh-legai-na-kih Two Silver Bars Confidential Na-nil-in Kept Secret Fighter Plane Da-he-tih-hi Hummingbird Fortification Ah-nah-soz Cliff Dwelling Invade A-tah-gi-nah Moved Into Machine Gun A-knah-as-donih Rapid Fire Gun Sailor Cha-le-gai White Caps Squad Debeh-li-zini Black Sheep Submarine Besh-lo Iron Fish Tank Chay-da-gahi Tortoise Village Chah-ho-oh-lhan-ih Many Shelter

He was then shipped to Hawaii to train for advance combat.

“We practiced sending dummy messages to perfect ourselves to send and maintain communications for amphibious Marines,” he said of the 33 men who shared his job in the Fifth Marine Division. “The first group of Navajos only had 211 (words) which they used around Guadalcanal and Solomon Islands. But with our division we had 508 that we had to memorize. It was easier for the first group because they only used limited code. But us, we had to really get down to business.”

Begay saw action in a half dozen arenas, including Guam, Iwo Jima and Saipan, where “Windtalkers” is set. During his tenure at Iwo Jima, code talkers were responsible for more than 800 messages in 48 hours. Not a single error was made.

Despite their contributions, these Marines were still working in a somewhat segregated climate. “Windtalkers” makes a point of displaying the racism directed at the individuals by some fellow members of the U.S. military.

When asked how the other soldiers treated the Navajo, Begay was quick to correct the question.

“I don’t know about the other ‘soldiers’ we were Marines. We don’t like to be called soldiers. We like to be called Marines,” he laughed.

“I had no problem with them, maybe a few here and there. Our generation, we weren’t taught any kind of hatred, regardless of what they did to us even with the long walks and death marches. Our parents always say you are trained to take criticism, you’re trained to physically take anything, like the four seasons in our area. With the weather we can withstand anything. So even though somebody made a remark like ‘you are the ward of the government,’ it didn’t bother us.”

Eventual acknowledgment

The accomplishments of the Navajo during World War II were unknown for many years because the code was classified until 1968. Only recently has there been a real movement to exalt the men.

Last July, President Bush formally recognized the five surviving members of the original code talkers with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor. The other living members, who number around 200 (including Begay), were presented with Silver Medals.

“I think the Navajo code talkers deserve military decoration: a Medal of Honor, Navy Cross or Distinguished Service Cross,” Begay emphasized. “But maybe it’s because we’re Indians. You never know about those things.”

This weekend the MGM feature “Windtalkers” will help convey the story on an international scale. Despite some complaints with how the movie was put together, Begay still views the blockbuster as a positive development.

“It’s great for recognition, to let the American people know that we helped the United States Government and the Department of Defense,” he said. “We saved many lives, money and ships with our secret code. I think this exposure gives us a way higher image than before. We did something nobody else did.”

Now in retirement from his 40-year job as an agency superintendent for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (or “Boss the Indians Around,” he joked as an alternate definition for the abbreviation), Begay resides in Window Rock, Ariz. The tiny town also accommodates the Navajo Museum which serves as home to the Navajo Code Talkers Assn., a group that holds monthly meetings there.

So can the 75-year-old Begay still remember all 508 words of the code?

“Sure,” he said laughing. “I’m a code talker.”