PHOENIX – After an arduous journey to honor Navajo code talkers, a statue made of bronze now graces the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, in front of the Arizona State Capitol building.
The 16-foot statue, presented Feb. 28, shows a Navajo code talker kneeling on one knee speaking into a transmitter radio.
”It is a good place to have a bronze statue erected that will be there for the next hundred years or more … it is a good place to preserve the deeds and honor that the Navajo code talkers deserve,” stated Peter McDonald, former chairman of the Navajo Nation and current chairman of the Navajo Code Talker Memorial Foundation.
The dedication of the statue was attended by Navajo code talkers, code talkers’ relatives, tribal leaders and other dignitaries.
After a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II. It was during WWII that Philip Johnston proposed the idea of a code using the Navajo language; and as a result, an initial 29 code talkers were recruited to develop a code using their language. Approximately 400 other Navajo code talkers eventually were recruited and served in the U.S. military.
Navajo code talkers have been cited as being instrumental to military success during WWII and are often credited for saving numerous lives by using their coded language to assist in military battles in places such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Okinawa and Saipan.
McDonald stated that the statue ”was to honor the outstanding contribution that code talkers made during World War II [and] to honor the courage and resourcefulness to save countless lives and also to accelerate the realization of peace by the use of [the Dine’] language.”
Efforts to honor the code talkers began in 2003 when former Arizona Rep. Sylvia Laughter introduced the Navajo Code Talker Monument legislation. In February 2004, the Navajo Code Talker Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was established. In September of the same year, the first monument was erected at the Navajo Nation Capitol.
Laughter, also Dine’ and founder of the Navajo Code Talker Memorial Foundation, stated that the ”[monument] signifies, not just to our own Navajo people, the significance of the code talker’s contribution … we have a monument that people can now learn about the code talkers.”
Laughter spoke about the importance of telling the story of the code talkers as a part of Arizona’s history. ”Lots of people and the public were not even aware of the contribution of the Navajo code talkers … I felt like they needed to be aware of it. I believe that we need to put that into the archives of Arizona history. We now have a monument that people can see and learn about the contributions of the Navajo code talkers.”
The monument is a statue that writes the often forgotten indigenous peoples back into the consciousness of the general American population. It represents indigenous peoples embracing their language and culture despite the United States’ past actions towards indigenous peoples’ lifeways.
McDonald stated, ”I believe that the bronze statue will forever remind young Navajo people, the general American people, and the world that the [indigenous] peoples are here in order to maintain peace. …
”The monument … tells a story about the first people here on this continent who cherish this land, who cherish their culture and their way of life … it is a story of a sacrifice that our young men made … it is a story of a language that was used to create an unbreakable code.”