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CNN
a day ago
- General
- CNN
Just two Navajo Code Talkers remain alive. Here's what they want America to know
Indigenous people Japan Asia Federal agenciesFacebookTweetLink Follow Eighty years ago, as the sea swayed him from side to side on an attack vessel heading towards Iwo Jima, Thomas Begay started to feel afraid. 'On the ship, they said: 'get your last scrap of steak and eggs,'' he recalled. 'That gave (me) some kind of feeling in my stomach. What am I doing here? What's going to happen?' 'It's a scary thing,' the veteran told CNN from his home in Window Rock, Arizona. 'You don't know where the bullet or the bomb will come from.' Begay landed on the island as a member of the 5th Marine Division, but his role was unique: He was a Navajo Code Talker, deployed into battle to help the US military send encrypted messages that enemy forces were unable to decipher. More than 400 Navajo Code Talkers were sent to the Pacific during World War II, operating alongside the Marines at pivotal battles including those at Saipan, Guam, Tinian and Iwo Jima. Their code proved vital: it was never cracked by the Japanese, and allowed US troops to organize their movements without the enemy's knowledge. Thursday is National Navajo Code Talker Day – an annual celebration created by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. It is also the 80th anniversary of Japan's initial surrender in World War II, which effectively ended the costliest war in human history. The documents codifying their surrender were signed a few weeks later. Today, just two Code Talkers survive. CNN spoke to both – Peter MacDonald, 96, and Begay, who is now 100 – about their recollections from the war and how their contributions are recognized across the US. But while their service is recorded in history books, how they are remembered remains a live issue. The Code Talkers have been dragged into the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and a years-long effort to create a dedicated national museum has stalled and may stretch beyond MacDonald and Begay's lifetimes. For MacDonald, they are trends with troubling historical echoes. 'It's a form of discrimination,' he told CNN of the Pentagon's deletion in March of webpages documenting their service – an act the Department of Defense reversed, but which drew fury across the Navajo Nation. 'Over 100 years, we lived through all of that discrimination.' 'We need to take a serious look at what we are doing here in America,' MacDonald added. 'At what America has done to Native Americans, and maybe other minorities.' 'We need serious discussion,' he said. 'We cannot go on this way.' The secretive and dangerous journey that led MacDonald into America's history books began when he saw another member of his clan in a Marines uniform. 'I asked: where can I get one of those beautiful uniforms you're wearing?' he told CNN. MacDonald was told he'd need to enlist with the Marines. But there was a problem: he was only 15, two years below the age requirement. That didn't deter him. 'We've been carrying rifles since we were 7 or 8 years old,' he said, telling his fellow clan member: 'We shoot rabbits, we shoot squirrels, we shoot birds, and sometimes I'm a better shot than you.' MacDonald lied about his age and enlisted. He told CNN that on his visit to the enrollment office, he said: 'I don't want the Japanese to ever come here to Window Rock, Arizona.' 'We had seen enough of (that) stuff before, and we don't like it,' he told CNN. 'This is our land and we're going to protect it.' There was an irony to his eagerness. Native people had been full American citizens for just two decades, but they still didn't have the right to vote. Many Native children, including a significant portion of the Code Talker cohort, were still being taken from their families and forced to enroll in boarding schools, where they were stripped of their language and other traditions. With the Marines MacDonald was summoned to a meeting, where he found dozens of fellow Navajo. And in that room, he discovered a secret: The same Navajo language that many of his peers were forced to abandon was now being used to win a war. The idea had been proposed to the Marines by Philip Johnston, an engineer and the son of a missionary who had grown up alongside Navajo children. It was nearly indecipherable: virtually nobody outside the Navajo nation spoke the language. The Code Talkers developed an extensive and complicated code based on their own language, which substituted key military and geographical terms for related images. 'Tank' became 'chay-da-gahi,' which means 'turtle.' 'Fighter plane' 'was da-he-tih-hi,' or 'hummingbird.' In many cases, they were forced to invent new words altogether, because Navajo didn't contain direct translations. When Code Talkers were deployed in battle they were assigned Marine escorts for protection after multiple Code Talkers were mistaken for Japanese soldiers and confronted by US troops. 'A lot of times we were mistaken for Japanese,' Chester Nez, a Code Talker who died in 2014, said in an oral history interview for the Library of Congress. Nez recalled being stopped by a Marine while walking back to camp with a fellow Code Talker on the island of Guadalcanal in 1942. Nez, barred from disclosing any information about the Code Talker program even to fellow Marines, said the pair were telephone operators. 'He didn't believe us,' Nez said 'This guy took a .45 and stuck it in my head and my body … that was the most scary thing that happened to me.' Code Talkers spoke into their hefty radios when an instruction needed relaying. For example, MacDonald explained that on Iwo Jima, a message needed to be sent to headquarters: 'Send demolition team to hill 362B.' The message that was transmitted over radio was: 'Sheep. Eyes. Nose. Deer. Destroyer. Tea. Mouse. Turkey. Onion. Sick horse. Three. Six. Two. Bear.' In all, more than 800 messages were sent between Code Talkers at Iwo Jima. Begay was one of those on the island, and he remembers how he felt when he saw an American flag raised on Mount Suribachi. It had been hoisted by six Marines days earlier, a moment captured in an iconic photograph by the Associated Press photojournalist Joe Rosenthal. 'My God,' he said. 'I was so proud.' When MacDonald and Begay returned to the US after the war, they were sworn to secrecy. The code talker program remained classified until 1968, in case the military should ever need to reactivate it. For the Navajo who powered the program, that meant returning to their pre-war lives, excluded from the heroes' welcome that many other returning soldiers received. 'We had really gotten used to being treated as a second-class citizen,' MacDonald said, adding his experience was 'no different' after his return. 'We were very much mistreated in America.' 'We were not rich at all,' he continued. 'We were just trying to survive. In the meantime, when you go into town, (non-Native) people make fun of you: people tell you … 'you don't sit there, you eat over there, you don't use this, you do that.'' Begay's son remembers the day the secret was lifted: his father came home and finally told his family what he had done during the war. 'Right away I started asking him questions at the dinner table,' said Ronald Begay, himself a veteran of the Army. 'I didn't know that, because it was never in the history books. I was proud of my dad.' Both men had long post-war careers. Begay retired in 1984 after 40 years of federal service as a superintendent at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Chinle, Arizona. MacDonald's legacy is more complicated. He served four terms as the Navajo Nation chairman, becoming popular for aggressively championing Navajo sovereignty. But he was sentenced to jail time in 1990 on federal and tribal charges, including bribery and racketeering; his earlier refusal to step down when placed on administrative leave led to a lengthy standoff and ultimately a riot in which two of his supporters died. President Bill Clinton would ultimately commute his sentence to time served. At a White House reception hosted by President Donald Trump in 2017, MacDonald said he and his then-12 fellow surviving Code Talkers had one last mission: to ensure the memory of their accomplishments was kept alive. It is not a memory that has always been respected. MacDonald had hoped that 'Windtalkers,' a 2002 action movie based on their contributions, would serve as a cultural touchstone for a new generation. But the production was critically panned and criticized for its historical inaccuracies. 'They asked us to come to their opening,' MacDonald told CNN about the movie's premiere. 'And what do we see? About 20% of the movie was Navajo Code Talkers. 80% of the movie was about Nicolas Cage and whatever problem he was having with his girlfriend,' he said. For several years, one of the best collections of artifacts relating to the Code Talkers was found in an unlikely place: a Burger King in Kayenta, Arizona. Small exhibits also exist in museums in nearby Tuba City and in Gallup, New Mexico, but MacDonald has campaigned for a museum dedicated solely to the Code Talkers. That project is ongoing. Earlier this year, the surviving Code Talkers experienced an unexpected new assault on their legacy. Amid a sweeping purge of webpages that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the Pentagon wiped a number of pages honoring the contribution of MacDonald, Begay and their peers. It was part of a hurried crackdown that also saw the deletion of information completely unrelated to DEI issues – like Holocaust remembrance, suicide prevention and the Enola Gay aircraft – or pages that commemorated other war heroes like World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves and historically significant service members such as baseball great Jackie Robinson. 'The new administration came in, and I guess they want to change a lot of things,' MacDonald told CNN. 'They wanted nothing, no words, about Navajo Code Talkers.' Multiple defense officials told CNN at the time that military units were instructed to simply use keyword searches like 'racism,' 'ethnicity,' 'history' and 'first' when searching for articles and photos to remove. The Pentagon subsequently restored the pages, and Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said in a statement at the time: 'In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.' The episode became a flashpoint in the national controversy over the Trump administration's targeting of DEI initiatives. Ronald Begay, who champions his father's efforts to preserve the Code Talkers' legacy, said he was 'appalled' by the saga. 'I immediately started texting the Navajo Code Talker descendants, as well as some prominent veterans – we support each other in various ways,' he said. 'Why would they do that?' he asked. 'After all, that's why we are free … our language was historic.' The episode was quickly undone. But for the Code Talkers and their descendants, it struck at the heart of a deep-rooted fear: that their legacy will be sidelined once MacDonald and Begay are not longer around to tell their stories. 'We need a good 'thank you' from the people who have become wealthy in America,' MacDonald said. He'd like a new movie to be made about their contribution, alongside a permanent, dedicated museum. MacDonald and other Code Talkers have campaigned for years to make the museum project a reality, but it remains tens of millions of dollars out of reach, the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported in 2023. CNN has contacted organizers of the project for an update on its progress. 'I don't believe (people) understand this tremendous contribution to the battle in the Pacific War,' he said. 'It made all the difference in the world.' The next time a post-war milestone is met, it is possible that no Code Talkers will be alive to greet it. But MacDonald and Begay hope their contribution to American history is remembered once they are no longer present to tell their stories. 'I believe this is the only country in the entire world blessed by the holy ones,' MacDonald said. 'And we need to keep it that way.' But the Pentagon's DEI purge and the lack of progress on the long-running effort to cement the Code Talkers' legacy with a museum has angered him. 'We need to get back to serious thinking (about) how we're gonna live into the next century,' he said.
CNN
a day ago
- General
- CNN
Just two Navajo Code Talkers remain alive. Here's what they want America to know
Eighty years ago, as the sea swayed him from side to side on an attack vessel heading towards Iwo Jima, Thomas Begay started to feel afraid. 'On the ship, they said: 'get your last scrap of steak and eggs,'' he recalled. 'That gave (me) some kind of feeling in my stomach. What am I doing here? What's going to happen?' 'It's a scary thing,' the veteran told CNN from his home in Window Rock, Arizona. 'You don't know where the bullet or the bomb will come from.' Begay landed on the island as a member of the 5th Marine Division, but his role was unique: He was a Navajo Code Talker, deployed into battle to help the US military send encrypted messages that enemy forces were unable to decipher. More than 400 Navajo Code Talkers were sent to the Pacific during World War II, operating alongside the Marines at pivotal battles including those at Saipan, Guam, Tinian and Iwo Jima. Their code proved vital: it was never cracked by the Japanese, and allowed US troops to organize their movements without the enemy's knowledge. Thursday is National Navajo Code Talker Day – an annual celebration created by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. It is also the 80th anniversary of Japan's initial surrender in World War II, which effectively ended the costliest war in human history. The documents codifying their surrender were signed a few weeks later. Today, just two Code Talkers survive. CNN spoke to both – Peter MacDonald, 96, and Begay, who is now 100 – about their recollections from the war and how their contributions are recognized across the US. But while their service is recorded in history books, how they are remembered remains a live issue. The Code Talkers have been dragged into the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and a years-long effort to create a dedicated national museum has stalled and may stretch beyond MacDonald and Begay's lifetimes. For MacDonald, they are trends with troubling historical echoes. 'It's a form of discrimination,' he told CNN of the Pentagon's deletion in March of webpages documenting their service – an act the Department of Defense reversed, but which drew fury across the Navajo Nation. 'Over 100 years, we lived through all of that discrimination.' 'We need to take a serious look at what we are doing here in America,' MacDonald added. 'At what America has done to Native Americans, and maybe other minorities.' 'We need serious discussion,' he said. 'We cannot go on this way.' The secretive and dangerous journey that led MacDonald into America's history books began when he saw another member of his clan in a Marines uniform. 'I asked: where can I get one of those beautiful uniforms you're wearing?' he told CNN. MacDonald was told he'd need to enlist with the Marines. But there was a problem: he was only 15, two years below the age requirement. That didn't deter him. 'We've been carrying rifles since we were 7 or 8 years old,' he said, telling his fellow clan member: 'We shoot rabbits, we shoot squirrels, we shoot birds, and sometimes I'm a better shot than you.' MacDonald lied about his age and enlisted. He told CNN that on his visit to the enrollment office, he said: 'I don't want the Japanese to ever come here to Window Rock, Arizona.' 'We had seen enough of (that) stuff before, and we don't like it,' he told CNN. 'This is our land and we're going to protect it.' There was an irony to his eagerness. Native people had been full American citizens for just two decades, but they still didn't have the right to vote. Many Native children, including a significant portion of the Code Talker cohort, were still being taken from their families and forced to enroll in boarding schools, where they were stripped of their language and other traditions. With the Marines MacDonald was summoned to a meeting, where he found dozens of fellow Navajo. And in that room, he discovered a secret: The same Navajo language that many of his peers were forced to abandon was now being used to win a war. The idea had been proposed to the Marines by Philip Johnston, an engineer and the son of a missionary who had grown up alongside Navajo children. It was nearly indecipherable: virtually nobody outside the Navajo nation spoke the language. The Code Talkers developed an extensive and complicated code based on their own language, which substituted key military and geographical terms for related images. 'Tank' became 'chay-da-gahi,' which means 'turtle.' 'Fighter plane' 'was da-he-tih-hi,' or 'hummingbird.' In many cases, they were forced to invent new words altogether, because Navajo didn't contain direct translations. When Code Talkers were deployed in battle they were assigned Marine escorts for protection after multiple Code Talkers were mistaken for Japanese soldiers and confronted by US troops. 'A lot of times we were mistaken for Japanese,' Chester Nez, a Code Talker who died in 2014, said in an oral history interview for the Library of Congress. Nez recalled being stopped by a Marine while walking back to camp with a fellow Code Talker on the island of Guadalcanal in 1942. Nez, barred from disclosing any information about the Code Talker program even to fellow Marines, said the pair were telephone operators. 'He didn't believe us,' Nez said 'This guy took a .45 and stuck it in my head and my body … that was the most scary thing that happened to me.' Code Talkers spoke into their hefty radios when an instruction needed relaying. For example, MacDonald explained that on Iwo Jima, a message needed to be sent to headquarters: 'Send demolition team to hill 362B.' The message that was transmitted over radio was: 'Sheep. Eyes. Nose. Deer. Destroyer. Tea. Mouse. Turkey. Onion. Sick horse. Three. Six. Two. Bear.' In all, more than 800 messages were sent between Code Talkers at Iwo Jima. Begay was one of those on the island, and he remembers how he felt when he saw an American flag raised on Mount Suribachi. It had been hoisted by six Marines days earlier, a moment captured in an iconic photograph by the Associated Press photojournalist Joe Rosenthal. 'My God,' he said. 'I was so proud.' When MacDonald and Begay returned to the US after the war, they were sworn to secrecy. The code talker program remained classified until 1968, in case the military should ever need to reactivate it. For the Navajo who powered the program, that meant returning to their pre-war lives, excluded from the heroes' welcome that many other returning soldiers received. 'We had really gotten used to being treated as a second-class citizen,' MacDonald said, adding his experience was 'no different' after his return. 'We were very much mistreated in America.' 'We were not rich at all,' he continued. 'We were just trying to survive. In the meantime, when you go into town, (non-Native) people make fun of you: people tell you … 'you don't sit there, you eat over there, you don't use this, you do that.'' Begay's son remembers the day the secret was lifted: his father came home and finally told his family what he had done during the war. 'Right away I started asking him questions at the dinner table,' said Ronald Begay, himself a veteran of the Army. 'I didn't know that, because it was never in the history books. I was proud of my dad.' Both men had long post-war careers. Begay retired in 1984 after 40 years of federal service as a superintendent at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Chinle, Arizona. MacDonald's legacy is more complicated. He served four terms as the Navajo Nation chairman, becoming popular for aggressively championing Navajo sovereignty. But he was sentenced to jail time in 1990 on federal and tribal charges, including bribery and racketeering; his earlier refusal to step down when placed on administrative leave led to a lengthy standoff and ultimately a riot in which two of his supporters died. President Bill Clinton would ultimately commute his sentence to time served. At a White House reception hosted by President Donald Trump in 2017, MacDonald said he and his then-12 fellow surviving Code Talkers had one last mission: to ensure the memory of their accomplishments was kept alive. It is not a memory that has always been respected. MacDonald had hoped that 'Windtalkers,' a 2002 action movie based on their contributions, would serve as a cultural touchstone for a new generation. But the production was critically panned and criticized for its historical inaccuracies. 'They asked us to come to their opening,' MacDonald told CNN about the movie's premiere. 'And what do we see? About 20% of the movie was Navajo Code Talkers. 80% of the movie was about Nicolas Cage and whatever problem he was having with his girlfriend,' he said. For several years, one of the best collections of artifacts relating to the Code Talkers was found in an unlikely place: a Burger King in Kayenta, Arizona. Small exhibits also exist in museums in nearby Tuba City and in Gallup, New Mexico, but MacDonald has campaigned for a museum dedicated solely to the Code Talkers. That project is ongoing. Earlier this year, the surviving Code Talkers experienced an unexpected new assault on their legacy. Amid a sweeping purge of webpages that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the Pentagon wiped a number of pages honoring the contribution of MacDonald, Begay and their peers. It was part of a hurried crackdown that also saw the deletion of information completely unrelated to DEI issues – like Holocaust remembrance, suicide prevention and the Enola Gay aircraft – or pages that commemorated other war heroes like World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves and historically significant service members such as baseball great Jackie Robinson. 'The new administration came in, and I guess they want to change a lot of things,' MacDonald told CNN. 'They wanted nothing, no words, about Navajo Code Talkers.' Multiple defense officials told CNN at the time that military units were instructed to simply use keyword searches like 'racism,' 'ethnicity,' 'history' and 'first' when searching for articles and photos to remove. The Pentagon subsequently restored the pages, and Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said in a statement at the time: 'In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.' The episode became a flashpoint in the national controversy over the Trump administration's targeting of DEI initiatives. Ronald Begay, who champions his father's efforts to preserve the Code Talkers' legacy, said he was 'appalled' by the saga. 'I immediately started texting the Navajo Code Talker descendants, as well as some prominent veterans – we support each other in various ways,' he said. 'Why would they do that?' he asked. 'After all, that's why we are free … our language was historic.' The episode was quickly undone. But for the Code Talkers and their descendants, it struck at the heart of a deep-rooted fear: that their legacy will be sidelined once MacDonald and Begay are not longer around to tell their stories. 'We need a good 'thank you' from the people who have become wealthy in America,' MacDonald said. He'd like a new movie to be made about their contribution, alongside a permanent, dedicated museum. MacDonald and other Code Talkers have campaigned for years to make the museum project a reality, but it remains tens of millions of dollars out of reach, the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported in 2023. CNN has contacted organizers of the project for an update on its progress. 'I don't believe (people) understand this tremendous contribution to the battle in the Pacific War,' he said. 'It made all the difference in the world.' The next time a post-war milestone is met, it is possible that no Code Talkers will be alive to greet it. But MacDonald and Begay hope their contribution to American history is remembered once they are no longer present to tell their stories. 'I believe this is the only country in the entire world blessed by the holy ones,' MacDonald said. 'And we need to keep it that way.' But the Pentagon's DEI purge and the lack of progress on the long-running effort to cement the Code Talkers' legacy with a museum has angered him. 'We need to get back to serious thinking (about) how we're gonna live into the next century,' he said.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘They never expected it to succeed': Sweetwater WASP Museum celebrates 20 years honoring WWII pilots
ABILENE, Texas () – Looking back in history to World War II, the Women Airforce Service Pilots were superheroes of aviation. They were the first women to fly U.S. military aircraft, and most of them trained in the Big Country, at Avenger Field in Nolan County. This year, the WASP Museum is celebrating 20 years of honoring these pioneers who blazed through the skies more than 80 years ago. Iowa veteran cycles 800+ miles to Sweetwater to honor WASP program It was 1942 when women stepped up to the cockpit during the war, marking the start of the Women's Air Force Service Pilots, or WASP. Lisa Taylor is the executive director at the WASP Museum. She taught history for many years, and after moving to Sweetwater and taking a peek inside the museum, she was fascinated by their story, one she said she wished she could have taught her students. 'We talked about the Tuskegee and the Navajo Code Talkers, and I tried to bring in all the facets of World War II because there was so much to it. But I had never heard of these women. We talked about Rosie the Riveter,' Taylor said. 'Not only were they just fighting the barriers of being in the army, Air Corps, but just societal barriers as well, because everyone mistrusted their motivation.' Taylor said she connected with the more than 1,100 female pilots and their resilience. 'It was like, okay, we just can't make it without women. We should start this experimental program. Right. They never expected it to succeed,' Taylor said. 'It was harder as pilots. That was the one area that the government seemed really bent on keeping women out.' WASPs come home to Avenger Field 80 years later With little to no resources, the women had to find their own means to get a pilot's license and also travel to Sweetwater for training. They were given hand-me-down uniforms that the men wore, which were often too big for most women and posed a safety hazard. Jacqueline Cochran, director of the WASP, changed the masculine camouflage to a standout 'Santiago' that still leaves an impact on the U.S. Air Force today. 'Legend has it that she went back and told her, ladies, my girls are not going to wear that dreadful [army green] color,' Taylor said. 'That was how Blue got introduced into the Army Air Corps. That was the first time there was blue. So, I think that we can credit Jackie Cochran with that.' One woman who inspired her was Betty Blake. She was a flight instructor based in Hawaii with 360 hours of flight time. By the time she finished the program, she had 3,600 hours. Blake, among many of the other women, faced societal backlash and disbelief for their service. Taylor said Blake was arrested due to her uniform having pants when she had to make a pit stop from a flight due to weather. 'Betty Blake, being arrested for wearing pants, this was what they were dealing with because of the scandalous for a woman to be in public in pants like that. They could be denied meals in a restaurant on nights in a hotel room,' Taylor said. 'She inspired us': Dyess AFB pilots continue WASPS legacy When the program ended in 1944 and the men started to return from war, the WASP returned to their everyday lives, not receiving recognition until more than 30 years later, and being delayed from a return to the skies because of their gender. 'None of the women who had joined the workforce during World War II really got to stay. I mean, the men came home, and they left. It became this 'Hey, that was really nice of you, but we're back,' Taylor explained. 'For a lot of women, it was so hard. They got out and they were determined to find professional jobs in aviation, and they applied to all the commercial airlines, all the private airlines, and they were just told no again and again and again.' 17 WASP have their ashes spread across the Avenger Field as part of a new memorial garden featured outside of the museum. The museum in Sweetwater is the only one dedicated solely to the WWII WASP veterans. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Native veterans living and dead are remembered at Steele Indian School Park for Memorial Day
The Phoenix Indian Center and the Veterans Administration's Phoenix regional office honored Native veterans with a ceremony at Steele Indian School Park May 23. The event was held at the American Indian Veterans Memorial at the park's central flagpole, part of the site of the now-closed Indian boarding school. Among the speakers were descendants of Navajo Code Talkers, the Marines who used their ancestral language to create an unbreakable code during World War II, a Navajo woman veteran and Michael Welsh, deputy director for the Phoenix VA health care system. VA staff were also on hand to provide information and enroll veterans or their families for social service programs. Shine Jozefiak, a Diné U.S. Air Force veteran who now works as a community care specialist at the VA, recounted her time serving in emergency rooms during Operation Enduring Freedom. "I joined the Air Force to make my grandparents proud," said Jozefiak, who grew up on her grandparents' ranch outside Fort Defiance. Her grandfather Herbert Chee was a Korean War veteran. Many Native people came through the emergency room, where Jozefiak and others would treat and prepare them to be transported to Germany for long-term treatment. "We remember hearing taps, and cried when we saw the flag draped over a coffin," she said. "When the doctors declared a soldier had died, everything stopped. You could hear a pin drop because you know what happened." Jozefiak also said that she would speak in Navajo to wounded soldiers when they were brought in to the ER. "'It's so good to hear our language so far from home,' they would tell me as I prepped them for transport," she said. The honoring ceremony concluded with laying a hand-crafted wreath of red, white and blue flowers at the foot of one of the four pillars of the memorial. Each pillar commemorates a group of veterans who served and sacrificed for their nation, including Native veterans who paid the ultimate price for freedom. Welsh said the employees made the four-foot-diameter wreath because they couldn't locate one that size. Missing from the conversation was the fate of the tribal flags that had been on display in the lobby of the Phoenix VA Hospital for about 40 years. In March, the flags were unceremoniously removed in compliance with a new VA policy limiting which flags can be displayed on VA grounds. Tribal VA staff, not wishing for the flags to be stuffed into a closet and forgotten, took them to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which accepted them for safekeeping. A week later, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs accepted the flags to be displayed in the Capitol Rotunda, where they now reside. Hobbs invited a group of Native veterans and tribal leaders to see the flags April 8. "Phoenix Indian Center recognizes the importance of the Native community's military veterans over the years," said Warren Kontz, the Indian center's director of programs. "Native people have always protected their own lands." Kontz, who belongs to the Muscogee Creek and Navajo nations, said Memorial Day reflects Indigenous resiliency. "We recognize those who did not return," he said, "and we think of our ancestors who fought for this land." Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @debkrol and on Bluesky at @ This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Indian Center, VA honor Native veterans for Memorial Day
USA Today
08-04-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Navajo Code Talker links restored on DOD sites; other Native stories still missing
Navajo Code Talker links restored on DOD sites; other Native stories still missing Show Caption Hide Caption Navajo Code Talkers Day celebration at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix Sen. Theresa Hatathlie speaks and WWII Navajo Code Talker Thomas H. Begay speaks - and sings - at the Navajo Code Talkers Day celebration in Phoenix. Arizona Republic The Defense Department scrubbed histories of Navajo Code Talkers from some of its websites but said the information would be returned. The Defense Department told Navajo leaders the Code Talker items were removed as part of an automated review of materials that could violate Trump DEI policies. Other Native stories are still missing, including mentions of Ira Hayes, one of the Marines photographed raising the flag at Iwo Jima, and Hopi soldier Lori Piestewa. After widespread public scrutiny, the U.S. Department of Defense and Army restored some articles about the Navajo Code Talkers on Wednesday after previously removing them. Links to Navajo Code Talker articles on the websites were noticeably broken and unavailable on Monday, but by Wednesday, certain links were working, and the articles had been restored. Articles on individual Navajo Army soldiers as well as articles on Native American Heritage month continued to be broken and not accessible. The Code Talkers histories were scrubbed from the Pentagon websites as part of a review of materials that violated President Donald Trump's order regarding diversity, equity and inclusion. The Navajo Nation Council posted on its social media feeds that the content was restored on the Department of Defense websites after assurances to President Buu Nygren that the materials would be available. It wasn't clear at the time when the materials would be restored. "The restoration of the Navajo Code Talkers' articles is a necessary step, but it does not erase the harm caused by their initial removal," said Navajo Nation Speaker Crystalyne Curley. "The service of the Code Talkers was crucial to the success of World War II, and their legacy must be continually recognized and honored, beyond any political agenda." The Navajo Nation Council had voiced its opposition to the removal of content honoring the Navajo Code Talkers. The council said the Pentagon acknowledged the removal was a "mistake." Nygren credited the Navajo Nation's Washington Office for its advocacy and a letter to the Department of Defense. "I want to assure the Navajo people that we remain in close communication with federal officials to ensure the legacy of our cherished Navajo Code Talkers is never erased from American and Navajo history," Nygren said. "As sovereign nations, we are not defined by DEI classifications. We are political sovereigns with treaties and a long-standing relationship with the U.S. government." DEI fallout: Colleges cancel Native convocations to comply with Trump order, disappointing students Material about other Native soldiers removed The Defense Department said the removal resulted from an automated process complying with a DEI policy directive. While some pages had been restored, others remain offline, displaying server errors. The Pentagon has pledged to fully resolve the issue. Some links that lead to articles on individual Navajo soldiers or mention of Native American Heritage Month still aren't working on the Army page, suggesting that the removal falls in line with Trump's campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion. A Feb 26. memo from Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of defense, ordered Pentagon departments to "take all practicable steps, consistent with records management requirements, to remove all DoD news and feature articles, photos, and videos that promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)." He gave them a deadline of March 5. The memo said all articles, photos and videos removed from the websites and social media platforms must be "archived and retained in accordance with applicable records management policies." It wasn't just the Navajo Code Talker links that were broken: Items about other notable Native American military members were also removed from the Defense website, including one on Ira Hayes, a Pima/Akimel O'odham Marine from Sacaton. Hayes was one of the Marines famously photographed raising the flag at Iwo Jima in World War II. Some items about Army Spc. Lori Piestewa, a Hopi soldier who was the first Native American woman to die in combat on foreign soil, were also removed. She was killed in 2003 in Iraq when a rocket-propelled grenade struck her vehicle during an ambush. Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said the removal of Native American veterans, such as Ira Hayes, is unacceptable and unfortunate. "To be clear, recognizing the patriotism and courage of Native American soldiers has nothing to do with any type of DEl initiative," Lewis said. "It's simply an offering of respect for extraordinary service and bravery in the line of duty. Every single reference that has been scrubbed should be returned to these websites as soon as possible." Fallout: DOD, Army websites scrub articles on Navajo Code Talkers. Here's how that may change Arlyssa D. Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and Send ideas and tips to
