At
7:53 A.M, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked
by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The first surprise attack wave targeted
airfields and battleships. The second assault targeted other vessels and
shipyard facilities. Many United States service men and women were
injured or lost their lives on December 7, 1941. This Photo-Art by Gilbert Padilla, Vietnam Veteran honors the sacrifices of all those who served that fateful day, a date that will live in infamy. December 7, 1941 Attack On Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941 Attack On Pearl Harbor Patcnews: Live on the Air Topic is The 71th Anniversary of The December 7 1941 Pearl Harbor Attack and my Guest Ron Harwell
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE SIR! REST IN ETERNAL PEACE! **Chester Nez, last of original group of Navajo Code Talkers, dies at 93***
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The language he once was punished for speaking in
school became Chester Nez's primary weapon in World War II.
Before hundreds of men from the Navajo Nation became Code Talkers, Nez
and 28 others were recruited to develop a code based on the
then-unwritten Navajo language. Locked in a room for 13 weeks, they came
up with an initial glossary of more than 200 terms using Navajo words
for red soil, war chief, braided hair and hummingbird, for example, and
an alphabet. Nez never tired of telling the story to highlight
his pride in having served his country and stress the importance of
preserving the Navajo language. The 93-year-old died Wednesday morning
of kidney failure with plenty of appearances still scheduled, said
Judith Avila, who helped Nez publish his memoirs. He was the last of the
original group of 29 Navajo Code Talkers. "It's one of the
greatest parts of history that we used our own native language during
World War II," Nez told The Associated Press in 2009. "We're very proud
of it." Navajo President Ben Shelly ordered flags lowered across
the reservation in honor of Nez from sunrise Thursday to sunset Sunday.
Nez was in 10th grade when he lied about his age to enlist in the U.S.
Marine Corps not knowing he would become part of an elite group of Code
Talkers. He wondered whether the code would work since the Japanese were
skilled code breakers. Few non-Navajos spoke the Navajo
language, and even those who did couldn't decipher the code. It proved
impenetrable. The Navajos trained in radio communications were walking
copies of it. Each message read aloud by a Code Talker immediately was
destroyed. "The Japanese did everything in their power to break the code but they never did," Nez said in the AP interview.
Nez grew up speaking only Navajo in Two Wells, New Mexico, on the
eastern side of the Navajo Nation. He gained English as a second
language while attending boarding school, where he had his mouth washed
out with soap for speaking Navajo. When a Marine recruiter came
looking for young Navajos who were fluent in Navajo and English to serve
in World War II, Nez said he told his roommate "let's try it out." The
dress uniforms caught his attention, too. "They were so pretty," Nez said.
About 250 Navajos showed up at Fort Defiance, then a U.S. Army base.
But only 29 were selected to join the first all-Native American unit of
Marines. They were inducted in May 1942 and became the 382nd Platoon
tasked with developing the code. At the time, Navajos weren't even
allowed to vote. After World War II, Nez volunteered to serve two
more years during the Korean War. He retired in 1974 after a 25-year
career as a painter at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque. His
artwork featuring 12 Navajo holy people was on display at the hospital. For years, Nez's family and friends knew only that he fought the Japanese during World War II.
Nez was eager to tell his family more about his role as a Code Talker,
Avila said, but he couldn't. Their mission wasn't declassified until
1968. The accolades came much later. The original group received
Congressional Gold Medals in 2001 and Nez often joked about pawning his.
He measured the accuracy of the movie "Windtalkers," based on the Code
Talkers that came out the following year, at 78 percent and said the
Navajo spoken by Adam Beach was hard to understand but "he tried his
best." Code Talkers have appeared on television and at parades
and they are routinely asked to speak to veterans groups and students.
They are celebrated on the Navajo Nation with a tribal holiday.
Nez threw the opening pitch at a 2004 Major League Baseball game and
offered a blessing for the presidential campaign of John Kerry. In 2012,
he received a bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas, where he
abandoned his studies in fine arts decades ago after tuition assistance
he received for his military service ran out. U.S. Sens. Tom
Udall and Martin Heinrich, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, of New Mexico,
praised Nez for his bravery and service to the United States in a
statement Wednesday. The Code Talkers took part in every assault the
Marines conducted in the Pacific, sending thousands of messages without
error on Japanese troop movements and battlefield tactics. Once
while running a message, Nez and his partner were mistaken for Japanese
soldiers and were threatened at gunpoint until a Marine lieutenant
cleared up the confusion. He was forbidden from saying he was a Code
Talker. "He loved his culture and his country, and when called,
he fought to protect both," Udall said. "And because of his service, we
enjoy freedoms that have stood the test of time." Despite having
both legs partially amputated, confining him to a wheelchair, Avila said
the humble Nez loved to travel and tell his story. "It really
was a good thing, such a good experience for him," she said. "He said he
would do it over again if his country needed him." A public
viewing is scheduled Monday evening in Albuquerque. A mass is scheduled
Tuesday in Albuquerque, with burial to follow at the Santa Fe National
Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ***** GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ***** Ahéhee Sir. ( Navajo word for today is Thank You Sir)
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