FReeper Canteen ~ National Navajo Code Talkers Day, August 14 ~ 14 August 2018

Serving The Best Troops and Veterans In The World !! | The Canteen Crew

[Kathy in Alaska]

The FReeper Canteen Presents…..

~ August 14th … National Navajo Code Talkers Day! ~

On July 26, 2001, the original 29 Code Talkers were presented with the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush. This long awaited recognition occurred 56 years after World War II despite the fact that the Code saved thousands of lives. The Code had been de-classified in 1968.

Canteen Mission Statement

Showing support and boosting the morale of
our military and our allies military
and family members of the above.
Honoring those who have served before.

The Navajo Code Talkers received no recognition until the declassification of the operation in 1968. In 1982, the code talkers were given a Certificate of Recognition by President Ronald Reagan, who also named August 14 "National Navaho Code Talkers Day."

How Great Thou Art ~ Choctaw

During World War II (1939-1945), the U.S. Marines trained Navajo soldiers as code talkers. During military campaigns in the Pacific, the Navajo soldiers relayed secret messages about troop movements and enemy locations in the Navajo language. Because of the complexity of the language, the Japanese were never able to decipher the code.

The idea to use Navajo for secure communications came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few non-Navajos who spoke their language fluently.

Johnston, reared on the Navajo reservation, was a World War I veteran who knew of the military's search for a code that would withstand all attempts to decipher it. He also knew that Native American languages--notably Choctaw--had been used in World War I to encode messages.

Johnston believed Navajo answered the military requirement for an undecipherable code because Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training.

It has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest. One estimate indicates that less than 30 non-Navajos could understand the language at the outbreak of World War II.

In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. Then, at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized during training.

Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers' primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers, and performed general Marine duties.

In this photograph, two Navajo Indians, Corporal Henry Bake, Jr., left, and Private First Class George H. Kirk, operate a portable radio set in a clearing they created in the dense jungle close to the front lines.

Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima." Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.

The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language. The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the code used by the Marines.

Cousins, Preston and Frank Toledo - Ballarat, Australia.
The Navajo code talkers even stymied a Navajo soldier taken prisoner at Bataan. (About 20 Navajos served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines.) The Navajo soldier, forced to listen to the jumbled words of talker transmissions, said to a code talker after the war, "I never figured out what you guys who got me into all that trouble were saying."

In a ceremony in the Capitol on July 26, 2001, the original twenty-nine Navajo "code talkers" received the Congressional Gold Medal, and subsequent code talkers received the Congressional Silver Medal.

It is the only unbroken code in modern military history. It baffled the Japanese forces of WWII. In fact, during test evaluations, Marine cryptologists said they couldn't even transcribe the language, much less decode it.

Click for more.

Chester Nez, the last original Navajo Code Talker, dies at 93.

012321 ~ 060414

RIP

Please remember that The Canteen is here to support
and entertain our troops and veterans and their families,
and is family friendly.

[radu]

Whew! I thought something had gone askew.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good night, my. Thanks for helping honor our military, and thank you for your service to our country.

[luvie]

Yep...the little monsters were back. A good thing...and a bad thing. LOL! And boy! were they hungry!

Glad you got to catch some lightning! it’s pretty rare stuff this year, I think.

Housework. Ugh. Gotta start that again tomorrow. The gift that keeps giving. sigh

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, Janey...((HUGS))...Las Vegas, huh? Better than NYC. Enjoy your overnight!

[radu]

Well darn those clouds last night not letting you glimpse some meteors.

Our skies were hazy but I still saw several in the hour I was out there. Then fog rolled in and I gave up. It was still pea soup thick when I went to bed this morning.

Ooooo, the temp sounds hopeful! Sure would be nice to have some help on pay weeks.
Now if y’all can learn how to enter your own timecards with the new system ....... :-)

[radu]

I understand your feelings mean but I’m still glad they showed up. It sounds like they didn’t get to eat wherever they were.

It wasn’t lightning that I saw last night. It was some shooting stars. Zipping lights. Most were small but there were four nice bright ones. Just no big fireballs this time. They’re the best!

Housework is an everyday thing here with all these cats. A little here, a little there. Got some laundry going right now.

[Kathy in Alaska]

The Mayor!!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Pro!!

[Kathy in Alaska]

[luvie]

Oh, yeah! Totally forgot about the light show since it was cloudy here plus all the ambient light in town. I should have watched for them on the JH webcams. LOL!

I don’t think they did eat. Wherever they were. It was a relief to see them safe, but lordy! I wish they’d find homes. I simply cannot afford 5X$245 to get them fixed. It’s un-doable!

Maybe a gofundme to help 5 little kitties. LOL! Just kidding.

[radu]

Yeah, city lights tend to ruin meteor shower viewing. The few bright ones will show up but there are a lot more of the dimmer “zippers” flitting across the skies that you can’t see. Gotta be in the boonies to see them.

$245 to spay a cat??? That’s highway robbery!!! It costs us $85, and that’s painful enough. Suvi will be ready for her turn in a couple of months. *sigh*

[radu]

Oh, and WOOHOO on that #50!

[luvie]

Well, that did include shots...for which I paid $69 when Peaches had his. Yep...highway robbery. That means I have got to find a better/cheaper way to get it done. Mainly the girlies.

Well....I got the #50??? Who knew! It was completely STSF! :)

[E.G.C.]

A very pleasant good Tuesday morning and ((HUGS)) to everyone at the Canteen and to all our military at home and abroad. Thanks for your service to our country.

The plumbing is OK except for the bathroom sink. I'm going to call another plumber soon to have that fixed. We had rain yesterday which felt good. Not much else went on.

Yes, I agree, Aretha was such a talented artist. Going to miss her very dearly.

[radu]

That’s still well over $100 for the surgery and that’s mighty steep. Ouch! Might be time to do a little vet shopping. There’s bound to be one who doesn’t think as highly of himself in the area. We’re lucky enough to have an excellent vet who’s reasonable. There are a few around here who seem to want to become millionaires.

[radu]

Howdy, E.G.C. *HUGZ*

Glad you just had some nice rain and not any nasty storms yesterday. Was it kind enough to wait until after you and Gizmo made your trek to the lake?

Just hot and VERY muggy here.

[luvie]

I am going to try to get in touch with that friend of mine who works for a vet across town to see is they can do a group rate. LOL! Or something.

Oops. It’s later than I thought it was. Guess I’d better head out so I can be semi-alert for the quiz tomorrow night. Gotta keep up with the fun answers I get for the question at hand.

See ya then! Hope tomorrow is nice and cool there.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Choctaw...

Cree...

Tlingit...

Lakota Sioux...

Comanche...

Souix...

[radu]

Maybe your friend will know of a spay clinic that does surgery for reduced rates. They’re set up all across the country. Might be one close to you.

It IS a bit late for you to be up, isn’t it? LOL! Get a good night’s sleep so you’ll be ready for tomorrow.

No nice and cool in store for us this week. Even the rain they say we’ll get later in the week won’t cool us off much. We just hope to get some of that rain!

[E.G.C.]

It pretty much passed through (the 1st wave). There was another wave to our West that ended up moving through. No thunder or lightning, just rain.