http://www.boston.com/dailynews/206/nation/Navajo_Marines_to_receive_cong:.shtml

Navajo Marines to receive congressional medals for creating unbreakable codes during WWII

By Mary Perea, Associated Press, 7/25/2001 00:52

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) Zonnie Gorman spent years studying her father's work as a Navajo code talker during World War II, when he and other Navajos developed a code that was impossible for the enemy to break.

But all her studies and lectures over the last decade could never give him the proper recognition. That will change Thursday when she and her mother attend a ceremony in Washington to accept a Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of Carl Gorman, who died in 1998.

''It is bittersweet,'' said Zonnie Gorman, of Gallup, N.M. ''It would have been nice if he would have been here to receive it. It's very emotional and I'm sure it will be once we get to Washington.''

Carl Gorman was one of the original 29 Navajo men recruited by the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942 to develop an unbreakable code using their native language. The code talkers were said to have transmitted more than 800 error-free messages in a 48-hour period during the battle of Iwo Jima, one of the war's bloodiest battles.

Of the original 29 Navajo code talkers, five are still living. Four of them plan to attend the ceremony.

The medal is the highest civilian award Congress can bestow.

''It's nice that they're finally getting something,'' Gorman said. ''But it's a recognition that should have been given a long time ago.''

Sam Billison was a Navajo code talker, although not one of the original group.

''We're real proud of the first 29. They did a tremendous job and they must have been very intelligent,'' said Billison, who will attend the ceremony. ''I understand they (the military) put them in a room, locked the door and told them to do it.''

Billison and his fellow code talkers were not allowed to discuss their work when they returned home after the war.

''When we were being discharged the Marines told us, 'If anybody asks you what you did with the Marines, just say you fought. Don't say anything about radio, about code or communication.' And we did that,'' Billison said.

It wasn't until 1968 that the Defense Department released information on the code talkers, who have never been officially honored by the military.

''I wish they had done that right after the war,'' Billison said of the ceremony. ''We only have five of them still living and only four of them can make it. It's too bad that declassification of the code was done 20 years after the war, and they never had time to tell their relatives or kids of what they actually did in the war.''

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, who sponsored legislation to recognize the code talkers with the medal, said the delay in declassification was a reason for lack of recognition.

''There was a great deal of secrecy that the military maintained about the code talkers,'' said Bingaman, D-N.M. ''It seemed to me we ought to do something special to give them recognition and this is what we came up with.''

About 300 people who joined the original 29 code talkers will be honored with Congressional Silver Medals next fall, Gorman said. Billison will be among them.

''Those that are gone, I'm sure that their relatives will really be proud of it,'' Billison said. ''I'm sure that they'll remember them with those medals.''

On the Net:

Navajo Nation: http://www.navajo.org

Sen. Jeff Bingaman: http://bingaman.senate.gov/code talkers

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2001

Answers

I remember hearing about these men not long after I came over here. Being familiar with the intricacies of the codes devised by British intelligence services, I remember being tickled to death to learn of such a simple means of beating the enemy.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2001

Cool news! Thanks for posting. I missed this one.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2001