"C" is for code talkers

A few years ago, I visited The International Spy Museum in Washington D.C.  The museum offered some pretty cool exhibits--but the one that really stuck with me involved a little-known (at least to me) group of people who helped win World War II.  The Navajo Code Talkers.  The exhibit at the museum wasn't anything spectacular, but in all honestly it didn't need to be--I loved the story and I was really fascinated by what I learned.  I stumbled across this video while I was doing research for a short story that I am writing for my creative writing class. This documentary does a nice job of giving a brief look at the role that these men played during the war:

This site provides a lot of historical information as well as a page that lists many of the words created by the Navajo Code Talkers:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-4.htm

Now, I am by no means a historian, so I am not going to go into great detail regarding their story.  However, I do recommend that everyone do a little reading about them--they are quite an interesting group.  The reason I was so drawn to the story is two-fold.  First, I love stories about Native Americans.  I often imagine that somewhere in the desert or mountains there exists a small group of them that have been completely unaffected by time and colonialism.   

Second:  I love anything that has to do with espionage or military secrets.  They created a code that was unbreakable--in my book, that raises their coolness to a level is completely incalculable on the coolness scale.  

I found out that there is even a Code Talker GI JOE!!

 But, I digress....the purpose of this blog is to pay homage to this brave group of men whose contributions were not discovered until many years after the war because the code that they created was considered too valuable to be made public.  It wasn't until 1968 that it was declassified and the men who created it weren't given any official recognition until 2001.   

I feel lucky to have stumbled upon such a fascinating bit of history and am truly captivated by the story of these men.