As a Navajo person, Ned Begay’s story is filled with an understated dignity and pride, both in his people’s heritage and in their role within the United States. Because the Navajo people have suffered so much, often at the hands of the U.S. government, Ned feels a particular obligation to do what he can to improve the circumstances of his family and people. Yet that very devotion to his people, and his gratitude for what he’s received from them, also compel him to fight for the U.S. in World War II. By embedding Ned’s patriotism within a lifetime of grateful service to his own people, Bruchac suggests that Navajo soldiers’ American patriotism emerged from their history and culture, rather than being at odds with it.
Ned’s childhood prepares him for a life of serving others. When Ned’s uncle takes him to boarding school for the first time, his uncle explains that schooling isn’t just for Ned, but for all his people: “You are not going to school for yourself. You are doing this for your family. To learn the ways of the bilagáanaa, the white people, is a good thing. […] We must be able to speak to them, tell them who we really are, reassure them that we will always be friends of the United States. That is why you must go to school not for yourself, but for your family, for our people, for our sacred land." From a young age, Ned learns that he must do difficult things for the sake of his people as a whole—even when doing those things takes him away from his loved ones and the environment that’s most familiar to him.
Even while excelling in school, Ned remains sensitive to the struggles of his peers and the ways in which he might serve his people’s needs in the future. A lover of learning, Ned “read and studied and wrote, and my teachers noticed. I still didn’t speak up much in class—that would have been calling attention to myself or embarrassing to the other students who did not do so well in their studies. […] Someday, I said to myself, I will become a teacher, one who does not just teach, but also shows respect to all his Indian students and expects the best of everyone.” In other words, although Ned distinguishes himself academically, he does not allow himself to become cut off from his classmates’ struggles and he seeks ways that his learning can someday serve others, not primarily himself.
Ned’s strong patriotism is linked to his love of his land and desire to serve his people. “Nihimá, ‘Our Mother.’ That is the Navajo word we chose to mean our country, this United States. It was a good name to use. When we Indians fought on those far-off islands, we always kept the thought in our minds that we were defending Our Mother, the sacred land that sustains us.” Ned’s and other Navajos’ love for the United States is expressed in terms of their devotion to the land that’s belonged to them since long before white settlers colonized the region.
All his life, Ned carries in his wallet the words of a special resolution passed by the Navajo Tribal Council in 1940, before the United States had even declared war: “Whereas […] there exists no purer concentration of Americanism than among the First Americans […] we resolve that the Navajo Indians stand ready as they did in 1918, to aid and defend our government, and its institutions against all subversion and armed conflict and pledge our loyalty to the system which recognizes minority rights and a way of life that has placed us among the greatest people of our race.” This statement is at once a strong assertion of his people’s pride, an expression of national loyalty, and a recognition that America belongs to the Navajo people in a unique way, which makes them specially obligated to protect it. Ned’s lifelong admiration for these words also shows that his sense of duty to his people, and thus to his nation, remains unwavering.
Ned observes that the Navajo marines’ eagerness to fight isn’t diminished by the fact of the United States’s cruelty to their ancestors; rather, those memories spur them to fight so that their people’s land and way of life can continue in peace: “We Navajo Marines were tough and determined, perhaps even more so than most of the non-Indian Marines who later served by our sides. Why was this so? It may have been because we remembered the suffering and courage of our grandfathers who fought as warriors to protect our land and our people. We were not just fighting for the United States. We were going into battle for our Navajo people, our families, and our sacred land.” Far from seeing their history as setting them at odds with their duties as U.S. citizens, Ned and his fellow Navajo marines draw on their people’s warrior heritage to defend the United States—including hopes that their people will remain free and protected.
The connection between culture and patriotism is summed up by Ned’s happy memories of code talker training, when his Navajo language is employed to communicate important battlefield messages and is thus valued and celebrated by outsiders for the first time: “It was so good. It was good to have our language respected in this way. […] It was good that we could do something no one but another Navajo could do. Knowing our own language and culture could save the lives of Americans we had never met and help defeat enemies who wanted to destroy us.” Ned’s experiences as a code talker are good because, finally, he is free to use his language and culture on behalf of his country, rather than protecting them from it.
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Culture and Patriotism Quotes in Code Talker
I turned to look up at my uncle's kind face. […] I was frightened by the thought of being away from home for the first time in my life, but I was also trying to find courage. My uncle seemed to know that.
"Little Boy," he said, "Sister's first son, listen to me. You are not going to school for yourself. You are doing this for your family. To learn the ways of the bilagáanaa, the white people, is a good thing. Our Navajo language is sacred and beautiful. Yet all the laws of the United States, those laws that we now have to live by, they are in English."
For most Navajos, though, the possibility of war was very far away. Caring for their herds and trying to make ends meet was all they had time to think about. But our Navajo Tribal Council passed a special resolution in June of 1940. I liked their words so much that I made a copy of them on a piece of paper to carry with me in my wallet. I’ve kept those strong words all these years, though I have had to recopy them several times when the paper they were printed on grew worn from being folded and unfolded or when it was soaked by the salt water as we landed on those beaches. It is often that way, you know. Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon.
Johnny Manuelito's duty was to recruit from our eastern half of the big Navajo reservation. He did so in style, wearing his spotless new corporal's uniform as he spoke on street corners and in chapter houses. People were impressed, not just by his words but by how he looked. Those who had known him before said that he truly seemed to be a different person. He looked to have grown taller during the short time he was gone and he carried himself more like a white man than an Indian. When he came to our high school and spoke to the student body, his words reverberated in my mind like drumbeats.
I took five steps toward the dawn and stood there, feeling the warmth of the sun touching me. I reached into the pollen bag and took some out to scatter from north to south. I inhaled the dawn four times, giving a prayer to myself, to the new day, and to all that exists.
There was truly blessing all around me and all through me. With that new dawn, with my mind and my body, my spirit and my emotions in good balance, I was ready to begin my journey as a warrior for America.
You see, grandchildren, Fort Defiance is the place where our Navajo people were herded together in 1863 to start them on the Long Walk. Their first stop along that hard and painful way was Fort Wingate. Now, eighty years later, Navajos were making that same trip again. This time, though, it was not to go into exile. This time we were going to fight as warriors for the same United States that had treated our ancestors so cruelly.
[The] warning did not frighten me. It made me proud that our sacred language was so important to America. It felt good to know that we were the only ones who could do this useful thing. We swore that we would protect the code with our lives, and we kept our word. I am not sure how many of us became Navajo code talkers during World War Two, but I know that it was close to four hundred men. While it remained classified, not one of us ever told about the code, not even to our families. We kept it secret throughout the war and long after.
[Gene-gene] took me by the arm and led me to a big rock near the ocean. We sat together there for a time without saying anything. Then he bent over, pressed his palm on the ground, and lifted his hand up to rest it against his chest. I understood. He was telling me this land was in his heart. I knelt down on one knee and did the same, then swung my hand in the direction of the rising sun. Gene-gene nodded. He understood that the land of my own heart was there, far across the wide ocean. He placed his left hand on my chest and I did the same. We stood there like that for a while feeling each other's hearts beat with love for our sacred homelands. It was one of the best conversations I ever had.
Some of the things those generals wrote made me feel so good that I almost laughed out loud. Remember, grandchildren, like so many other Navajos, I had grown up hearing only criticism and hard words from the bilagáanaas about our people. We Navajos were stupid. We were lazy. We could not be taught anything. We could never be as good as any white man. To hear what was now being said truly made the sun shine in my heart.
The Navajos have proved to be excellent Marines, intelligent, industrious, easily taught to send and receive by key and excellent in the field.
That is what the commanding general of the Sixth Marine Division put in his official report. […] Each Marine division was expected to have at least 100 code talkers.
Although I had changed, the things that had made me feel sad and ashamed when I was a child in boarding school had stayed the same. It didn’t matter that I had fought for America. It didn’t matter that I had made white friends who would have sacrificed their lives to save me when we were at war. In the eyes of those prejudiced bilagáanaa in that bar, I was just another stupid Navajo.
But I did not walk away thinking that things were hopeless. […] I had learned to be self-confident as a Marine, to believe that I could succeed even in the hardest battle.
Finally, in 1969, we were told that we could speak about being code talkers. […] Books were written about us and we were invited to speak at special events. We were invited to the White House by one president after another. We were given medals like this one.
All of that was good, grandchildren. But more important than any praise was the fact that we could now tell this story. We could tell our children and our grandchildren about the way our sacred language helped this country.
