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American Morning
Navajo Code Talkers Honored in D.C.
Aired July 26, 2001 - 10:28 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: They are called the code talkers, more than two dozen members of the Navajo tribe who developed a secret code for sending messages during WWII and who were ignored for most of the time since then. But today, code talkers are being honored for their contribution with a Congressional Gold Medal.
CNN's Eileen O'Connor is live on Capitol Hill with more on their story, which Eileen does not mention, too, that the army, unlike the marines, who worked with Navajos, was trying to do something similar with Comanche and Hopi code talkers. Never got around to that.
EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But the marines did it very successfully with the Navajo people. Twenty-nine were the original code talkers. And the marines say the code talkers were absolutely critical in some of their major battles in the Pacific. They often were never given any relief. They were always on the front line. They were often never given any rest they were so critical.
But they always were able to get the orders out in a Navajo code they themselves created.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK MELSON, USMC CHIEF HISTORIAN: Communicator or radio operator is in close proximity to the commander. He, to some extent, is the commander's voice of command. If the enemy, in this case the Japanese, captured your communications equipment, they could very easily just turn a radio on and listen. And the Japanese did this, I know, on Guadalcanal and some of the earlier battles, and the concern was that the Japanese were listening in yet you still had the necessity to transmit messages, essential messages, messages that you needed to fight the battle.
They did things like tank, you know, an armored track vehicle came out as, you know, turtle. They would use common terms that they were aware of and had used at home and then applied them in a military sense.
Cable came out as wire rope. Bazooka comes out as bazooka. I know in my own active duty experience with communications, we would occasionally speculate what it would be like to have code talkers and actually had marines who were from the Navajo Nation that knew or had relatives who had done this in the war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'CONNOR: Now, with me is John Brown, Jr. He is one of the original code talkers. I actually have a copy here, Mr. Brown, of the Navajo dictionary. It was only just unclassified a few years ago. And it's really interesting that you all actually, you didn't have literal translations for some of these military terms, did you?
JOHN BROWN, JR., ORIGINAL CODE TALKER: No.
O'CONNOR: So, for instance, dive bomber was...
BROWN: Gini.
O'CONNOR: Gini? And what does that literally mean?
BROWN: Chicken hawk.
O'CONNOR: Chicken hawk.
BROWN: A bird.
O'CONNOR: OK, I was -- how did you come up with these words?
BROWN: Well, you had to devise some kind of knowledge about, you know, the things, of what it looks. You know, a bomber is something that, you know, hits a target, just like a gini, you know, when they hit their prey, they glide down and hit it, you know?
O'CONNOR: So these were words that were in the Navajo language that you then related through visuals or some other way?
BROWN: Yes.
O'CONNOR: But you had this all, all had to memorize then two of you, you were in Guadalcanal.
BROWN: Yes.
O'CONNOR: There was 350 others eventually. How did they learn this code?
BROWN: Well, they was shipped overseas. After they got through the training, some came over again and we left some teachers there, you know? They're the ones that taught them all.
O'CONNOR: You were so critical, it's said that bodyguards, you had bodyguards to protect you and in case you fell into enemy hands to kill you.
BROWN: Yes.
O'CONNOR: Did you, how was your bodyguard? Did you have a -- what kind of relationship did you have? What was your worst moment?
BROWN: Well, it was normal. Nothing special. You know, they'd just hang around and watch us and talk to us. O'CONNOR: Do you feel that this medal is a little later? Are you happy you're getting it today?
BROWN: Well, I believe it's at the right time because, you know, we are still around, a few of us, and maybe it's good that it came this time.
O'CONNOR: That's good. Well, thank you so much for all your service and for joining us here today.
BROWN: All right. OK.
O'CONNOR: Congratulations.
BROWN: OK, thank you.
O'CONNOR: We're going to be having a -- wait one second -- we're going to be having an interview with Matt Morgan, who is the U.S. Marine Corps motion picture liaison, in the next hour, and of course we'll have live coverage of the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at 1:00 Eastern Time -- but first this break.
BROWN: Thank you very much.
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