During World War II, some of America's most important battlefield messages traveled not through a newly invented machine, but through an ancient Native language.
The Navajo Code Talkers used Diné Bizaad - the Navajo language - to help transmit critical military communications throughout the Pacific. More than 400 Navajo Marines were eventually trained in the program, carrying coded information through some of the war's most dangerous campaigns.
Their code became famous for what the enemy could not do: break it.
But behind the story of an “unbreakable code” were real men - with families, fears, memories, and voices of their own.
On Navajo Code Talkers Day, observed each August 14, those voices deserve to be heard.
Samuel Tom Holiday: Sent Where the Danger Was Greatest
“They sent us wherever they needed us, wherever we were most dangerous.”
— PFC Samuel Tom Holiday, U.S. Marine Corps
Samuel Holiday grew up in Oljato, Utah, within the Navajo Nation. At 13, he was sent to a government-run boarding school, where he recalled being punished for speaking Navajo.
Years later, that same language became essential to his military service.
Holiday joined the Marine Corps in 1943 and served as a Code Talker during campaigns including Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima. His oral history describes dangerous patrols, calling in artillery using the Navajo Code, and the emotional weight of what he witnessed in combat.
After the war, those experiences remained with him. He later became a traditional medicine man, motivated in part by a desire to help others through suffering.
His story reminds us that the Code Talkers were more than voices over a radio.
They were men carrying enormous responsibility.
Bill H. Toledo: “We Worked Together”
“We were always working together, helping each other.”
— PFC Bill H. Toledo, U.S. Marine Corps
For Bill Toledo, the story was also one of brotherhood.
Toledo served as a Navajo Code Talker with the Marines in the Pacific. In his Veterans History Project interview, he remembered how closely the men depended upon one another.
That simple memory - helping each other - says something that military statistics cannot.
Behind every successful transmission was teamwork.
One Marine listened.
Another spoke.
Someone received the message.
And somewhere else, fellow servicemen depended on its accuracy.
The strength of the Code Talkers was not only the complexity of their language. It was also the trust between the men carrying it.
Thomas H. Begay: Determined to Serve
“I'm going to join the Marines, because I'm old enough!”
— Thomas H. Begay
Thomas H. Begay grew up speaking Navajo and later served as a Marine Code Talker during World War II. His service included Iwo Jima, where Navajo communications played a critical role in battlefield operations.
Decades later, Begay continued speaking publicly about what the Code Talkers had accomplished.
At a 2026 Navajo Code Talkers Day commemoration, the 101-year-old veteran reflected proudly on how their language had served the country during the war. At that time, he was one of only two surviving Navajo Code Talkers.
His life connects generations: from a young Navajo man determined to enlist to an elder helping ensure the story would not disappear.
John Kinsel Sr.: The Journey Home
After Bougainville, Guam, and Iwo Jima, one memory remained deeply personal for John Kinsel Sr.
“That was the best day of my life, when I saw my mom again.”
— John Kinsel Sr.
Kinsel served with the 3rd Marine Division and experienced some of the Pacific War's hardest fighting. Yet when he looked back, one of the memories that stood above the others was simply coming home and seeing his mother again.
That sentence brings the history back to something human.
Before these men became symbols of wartime ingenuity, they were sons leaving their families.
And after the battles ended, they were sons trying to come home.
More Than an “Unbreakable Code”
The story of the Navajo Code Talkers contains a profound contradiction.
Some Native children had experienced schools where speaking their own languages was discouraged or punished. Samuel Holiday personally remembered punishment for speaking Navajo at boarding school.
Then, during World War II, the United States depended on Navajo speakers precisely because of the language they had carried with them.
What had been suppressed became invaluable.
What had been treated as something to leave behind became something the military urgently needed.
And the Navajo Code remained unbroken by enemy forces during the war.
That is why their story is about more than military history.
It is also about language.
Identity.
Resilience.
Memory.
And survival.
Carry Their Stories Forward
Navajo Code Talkers Day gives us an opportunity to honor their military service - but remembrance should not end with a date on the calendar.
Their own words allow us to see the people behind the history.
Samuel Holiday remembered danger.
Bill Toledo remembered teamwork.
Thomas Begay remembered his determination to serve.
John Kinsel remembered coming home to his mother.
Together, those memories tell us something no statistic can fully capture:
The code was extraordinary because the men behind it were extraordinary.
Their voices carried critical messages across battlefields more than eight decades ago.
Our responsibility now is to make sure their stories continue to be heard.
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