MURFREESBORO — Several
members of the legendary Navajo Code Talkers of World War II will visit Middle
Tennessee State University on Saturday to take part in the MTSU Salute to
Veterans activities.
Using their native language, these military heroes developed
a secret communication code during World War II that enemy forces, namely the
Japanese in the Pacific theater, could not decrypt. The code is credited with
saving thousands of lives and contributed significantly to shortening the war
in the Pacific.
Visiting the Midstate this weekend to participate in several
Veterans Day-related events, 10 of the surviving Navajo Code Talkers will visit
MTSU Saturday. Now in their 80s and 90s, these veterans truly represent living
history.
At 11:30 a.m., they
will visit the Military Memorial Ceremony at the Veterans Memorial site
outside the Tom H. Jackson Building; then at 1 p.m., they’ll attend the Salute to Armed Services Picnic at the
Kennon Hall of Fame near Murphy Center.
Later, MTSU will
recognize the group on the field at Floyd Stadium before the national anthem
kicks off the 3 p.m. football game between MTSU and Florida International.
About the Navajo Code
The code was first used during the invasion of Guadalcanal
in 1942. Planners of the Pacific theater were impressed with how the “Navajo
Code” worked, and enemy forces were never able to understand or decrypt what
U.S. forces were communicating.
This demonstration of “Navajo Code” called for more Navajos
to be recruited by the U.S. Marine Corps — starting with 29 young Navajo Native
Americans in early 1942, then by 1945 including more than 400 U.S.-trained
Navajo Code Talkers.
In a simple, memorable way, the military terms resembled the
Navajo language and confused enemy forces. Examples: the Navajo word for tortoise
(chay-da-gahi) meant “tank”, and a dive-bomber (gini) was a “chicken hawk”
— a bird that dives on its prey. Sometimes the translation was more
literal, as in (besh-lo) “iron fish,” which means submarine.
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