Reflecting on Veterans Day with One of the Last Living Code Talkers

The Takeaway

It’s a beautiful, ancient language, one that very few people understand or speak.  Navajo was instrumental to the success of the U.S. in World War II. Navajo volunteers worked with the U.S. military to create a secret code language that was used for communication in the South Pacific.  Chester Nez, at 90 years old, is one of the only surviving member of the original Navajo recruits, and the author of a new memoir “Code Talker.”   Chester’s co-author,  Judith Avila, is a scholar who conducted eighty hours of interviews with Chester. In honor of Veterans Day, she shares more about Chester’s story, and that of the Code Talkers.

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