Navajo Code Talkers Day

Today is Navajo Code Talkers Day.

This day is about honoring the members of the Navajo Tribe that used a code based on their language to transmit and receive important messages and information during WWII. Most famously, the Navajo language was used as a basis for codes, but other languages from other tribes were used, including Comanche, Hopi, Mohawk, and Cherokee. These "code talkers" can be credited with aiding in several major victories in WWII. 

Code talkers were actually first known to be used during World War I, thanks to Cherokee soldiers in the 30th Infantry Division. They transmitted messages in their tongue during the Second Battle of the Somme. 

During WWII, a city engineer for Los Angeles named Philip Johnston proposed using the Navajo language as a basis for secret transmissions. Johnston himself was the children of missionaries to the Navajo and knew a dialect of it. Why that language? Well, Navajo has a complex grammar, and even by the 1930s, it was still an unwritten language. It also had a lot of dialects, which made it hard to translate for those who were not heavily exposed to it. The code that developed from the language would not be deciphered until 1968. 

The first Navajo Code Talkers Day would be declared in 1982 under Ronald Reagan. In 2008, President George W. Bush would sign the Code Talkers Recognition Act into law in 2008, which awarded every Native American soldier that served in the World Wars with a Congressional Gold Medal. These Gold Medals were awarded to the tribes as a whole, with silver medals given to the surviving talkers at the time or next of kin.