Code Talker 1/15/14

Prompt: Summarize what you just read.
Pages: 0-85

At the beginning of the book a Navajo Native American named Kii Yázhí is going to a school to learn English. His uncle had convinced his parents that it was the best thing they could do for their child. The teachers at the school were mean. Speaking Navajo was very bad and you were beaten if you did. The teachers gave all the students were all given names that the teachers could say. Kii Yázhí was given the name Ned Begay. Then all of his hair was cut off. Hair is never cut in Navajo culture, it is thought to be bad luck. All of his jewelry is taken and sold to rich people. When he accidentally speaks a Navajo greeting to a teacher he gets his mouth washed out violently with soap. If students continued speaking Navajo they were beaten with heavy sticks.

Ned does so well in school that when his schooling at the school to learn english that he is invited to go to a normal high school. He works hard and all the teachers like him. When he turns in an assignment his teacher says. "Well done, Neddie. I doubt that your average white student could have said it much better." Even though he is a good student when that teacher hears him speak in Navajo he calls him an "ignorant, useless savage". A few days after that on December 7th they announce over the radio that Pearl Harbor has been attacked by the Japanese. Soon a recruiter comes to Ned's town and starts recruiting people for the Marines. Ned wants to join but you must be 17 and he is a small 15 year old.

Soon a recruiter comes to the Navajo reserve looking specifically for Navajo recruits. Ned is only 15 so cannot join. 29 Navajos join the platoon and disappear from the reserve. Later Ned finds out that they were developing their top secret code and going into battle. They were not allowed in public because their code was so top secret. When Ned is 16 he convinces his parents to tell the recruiter he is old enough to join the Marines. He then goes to boot camp. None of the Navajos know how to swim but they need to to be in the Marines. But because Navajos are so important to sending messages. They teach all the Navajos to swim. Ned walks along the bottom of the pool from one side to the other on his first try. After boot camp they go to another camp to learn the top secret code using the Navajo language. They also learn to use morse code. When I finished they were being shipped out to Hawaii.