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5. The Navajo Code Talkers: Warriors for the Settler Nation
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chapter 5. The Navajo Code Talkers Warriors for the Settler Nation Magnificent specimens of “original American” manhood, they [Navajos] are already farther advanced than recruits are with so few days of training to their credit. All are of sturdy stock and “take well” to the type of discipline and military instruction offered in the Marine Corps, their instructors report.—“navajo indians tote rifles in boot platform,” Marine Corps Chevron, 15 May 19421 Well, when they called me “Chief” I just thought that the guy doesn’t know anything about Indian tribes. There’s no Chiefs in the Navajo tribe but there are “Chiefs” in your comic books, and I just pass it up that way that the guy doesn’t know anything about Indians.—sam billison2 Long ago our elderly people had many bad hardships. Accordingly, I guess we decided to go to war and protect our people from having other hardships. We have done that by the way of our thinking and teaching, just like when we approach things that are new to us. That was when we thought back about our people and our surroundings. I would think, “I’m doing this for my people.” I believed what we did was right, and it was worth it. We protected the many American people, also the unborn children, which would be the generation to come. Now, I see young men and women, and I’m glad for what I did for them.—cozy stanley brown3 Window Rock Fort Wingate Gallup NEW MEXICO ARIZONA N a v a j o N a t i o n UTAH COLORADO UTAH ARIZONA NEW MEXICO COLORADO C A N A D A U N I T E D S T A T E S M E X I C O 0 25 50 miles map 3. The Navajo Nation [18.232.169.110] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:15 GMT) A t a July 2001 ceremony honoring the Navajo Code Talkers, U.S. president George W. Bush stated, “Regardless of circumstances , regardless of history, they [Navajo Code Talkers ] came forward to serve America.”4 Bush’s speech, through use of the word “regardless,” reflects a significant aspect of the Code Talkers’ history. Bush, like a number of historians, glorifies the Code Talkers’ experience in celebratory stories about the Second World War rather than as part of a wider history of the Navajo Nation’s relationship with the United States. Similar to Bush’s standpoint most other historical studies consider the Navajo Code Talkers to signify racial harmony for Native Americans in the United States. To an extent this argument has merit—clearly the Navajo Nation supported the war effort, and undoubtedly the Navajo Code Talkers willingly partook in the Pacific campaigns. Code Talker veterans rightfully take pride in their accomplishments as vital participants in the war against Japan. The Code Talkers story has an underside to it, though. When recontextualized within a wider framework of American Indian–U.S. relations —like the Yolngu and Papua New Guinea case studies—the Navajo Code Talkers example does not represent a fundamental break with the structures of colonialism. Rather, the U.S. government used constructions of Native Americans as a “martial race” to transform their Native skills into weapons. The next two chapters reconsider the Navajo Code Talkers from the perspective that the government and the military considered Navajos solely as tools, while their cultural and intellectual skills were otherwise derided as inconsequential or 171 inferior to white Americans’. Therefore, although Navajo Code Talkers received significant praise during the war, the end of the war marked a stark return to discrimination and assimilationist policies. The continuity of prejudice and structural inequality crushed the hopes of many Navajos that the war would provide an opportunity for personal and collective advancement. This chapter analyzes the government’s and military’s mistrust and disapproval of the Code Talker project. It also considers Navajo agency through an investigation of Navajo motives to serve and questions to what extent military service fulfilled their expectations . The next chapter focuses on the contrasts between the valorous achievements of the Code Talkers in battle and the postwar neglect of the Code Talker veterans. Precursors to the Navajo Code Talkers The Second World War was by no means the first time the U.S. military employed Native Americans as weapons. Since the beginnings of European colonialism in the Americas, colonial powers both formally and informally employed Native...