“It was the hardest thing to learn,” Begay, 98, said Sunday at a ceremony in Phoenix to mark the anniversary. “But we managed to develop a code that could not be broken by the enemy of the United States of America.” Hundreds of Navajo were recruited by the US Marines to serve as code talkers during the war. Begay is one of three still alive to talk about it. Code Talkers participated in all Marine-led offensives in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, including Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima. They sent thousands of error-free messages about Japanese troop movements, battlefield tactics, and other communications crucial to the ultimate outcome of the war. President Ronald Reagan established Navajo Code Talkers Day in 1982, and the August 14 holiday honors all tribes associated with the war effort. It’s also an Arizona state holiday and a Navajo Nation holiday on the vast reservation that covers parts of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah. Begay and his family came from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Phoenix for Sunday’s event at Wesley Bolin Plaza where a statue of the Navaho Code Talker is on display.
