Code Talker

by Joseph Bruchac

  So it was for me. I remember looking at the drypainting made by Hosteen Mitchell. Sometimes a Blessingway does not include drypainting. This time, though, nothing was to be left out. I was to be given the utmost help and protection against all the dangers that might come. Hosteen Mitchell’s fingers delicately sprinkled golden grains to make the figure of Pollen Boy on the mound where everything was prepared. Then, as the sun reached the middle of the sky, Hosteen Mitchell stood up.

  “Bring in the food,” he called. “It is the ceremony’s day now.”

  There is not much to say about the time between the noon meal and the evening when the ceremony began again with the blessing of everything from the sacred items and the hogan to all of the personal possessions people had with them. I was free to do what I wanted during that time—with the exception of work. But all I did was find a quiet place and sit, thinking only of the ceremony that was being done for me. I was feeling peaceful and grateful that I was so loved and cared for by my family and our friends. I did not think even once about the journey that would soon begin for me.

  Even now, sixty years later, I still feel the beauty of that night. I can hear the twelve Hogan Songs that began the evening, those songs that Talking God sang about the home of Changing Woman, those songs that were sung around the Mountain Where Traveling Was Done. Song after song followed, every one of them chanted by Hosteen Mitchell. These days other singers help out and do some of the songs, but Hosteen Mitchell always did every single song himself. So it went all through the night with songs and blessing. Finally, the Dawn Songs were sung, and then one more song for all those songs that had gone before.

  Haya naiya yana,

  I have come upon it, I have come upon blessing

  People, my relatives, I have come upon blessing

  People, my relatives, blessed. . .

  From there Dawn comes,

  She comes upon me with blessing

  Before her, from there,

  She comes upon me with blessing

  Behind her, from there,

  She comes upon me with blessing

  Behind her, it is blessed,

  Before her, it is blessed,

  I have come upon it, I have come upon blessing. . .

  Hosteen Mitchell took pollen from his pouch and used it to bless my body. He gave me four pinches of pollen to eat and then sprinkled a trail that circled from me to the door and around the south side of the fire. Then he handed me the pollen pouch. I stood and followed the trail outside. 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.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Boot Camp

  The next day was a Monday, but I did not go to school. Instead I went with my parents to the Marine Corps office near our tribal headquarters to sign up. My mother and father waited outside for me while I went in.

  First Sergeant Frank Shinn, the very same Marine recruiter I had seen in his office the year before, looked me up and down. I knew he was studying me carefully because I was so small, wondering if I was really old enough. Of course, by then he had seen enough Navajo men to know that it is difficult for white men to tell our age by looking at us.

  “Are you at least seventeen years old?” he asked me in a slow voice.

  I answered him quickly in English. “I am old enough to join the Marines, sir.” I looked back over my shoulder, pointing with my lips out the door. “My parents are waiting outside. They will tell you I am old enough now.”

  I did not lie to him. I thought that sixteen was plenty old enough. So I was allowed to take the oath and become a Marine. In March of 1943 I joined over sixty other Navajo Indians who took the bus from Fort Defiance to Fort Wingate to be sworn in.

  I am sure that some of those men on the bus had the same thoughts that I had as I made that journey. 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.

  From what I know now, having talked over the years to many other jarheads—as we Marines call ourselves—my experiences at boot camp were a lot like those of every man who entered the Marines. I was allowed to unpack and relax after we arrived. The other Navajo men and I spent much of that first afternoon and night talking with each other, introducing ourselves, sharing our clans and figuring out how we were related. We were all excited about being there, but also unsure of what would happen next. Some were upset because they had seen the high fences all around us. All those locked gates and guards and barbed wire made them feel as if we had been taken to a prison rather than a training camp. Even though our cots were more comfortable than the beds most of us had been given at Indian boarding school, few of us got any real sleep that night.

  The next morning, things began to happen so fast that the world seemed to spin around me. We were taken for another physical and then sent to the barber, where all the hair was cut from our heads. I had been warned by one of the men in our group who had been through reserve officer training that this would happen to me. However, it was still a great shock to watch my black hair falling about my shoulders and down onto the floor, where it was just swept away as if it meant nothing. Even though most of us had already had our hair cut short when we went to Indian boarding school as children, we had never had it all taken off with a razor, as those Marine barbers did. A few quick swipes and there was nothing left up there at all, only skin. Some of the men in our group had tears in their eyes as their hair was shorn. As for me, when I ran my hand over my bare scalp, for some reason all that I could do was shake my head and smile.

  “I am a plucked turkey,” I said in Navajo to the equally bald recruit who stood up from the chair next to me. We both laughed.

  The next step was the supply depot for our standard issue of boots, socks, shirts, and pants.

  “These boots,” I said, holding them up, “they are too big for me, sir.”

  “Smallest size made, recruit,” said the supply sergeant.

  I ended up having to lace them doubly tight. I also learned to stuff the toes with crumpled-up newspaper to keep my feet from sliding around in them.

  “And what is this little bag?” I asked.

  “Hygiene kit,” the bored supply sergeant answered with a hand gesture that told me to move on. “Next.”

  When I looked inside I saw that it held soap and toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a razor. I looked around at the other Navajo men, some of whom were also looking in their new kits and holding up their razors. Just like me, not one of them had any beard at all. However, despite our lack of facial hair, every Navajo recruit was still expected to put soap on his face each morning and scrape away his imaginary beard. What you did in boot camp did not have to make sense. You just had to do it.

  That became even clearer as the day went on. Wherever I went, big men with angry faces yelled at me. No matter what I did, I could not do it right.

  “What are y’all ashamed of, recruit?” the drill instructor yelled at me, leaning down so that his nose was almost touching mine. “Y’all lift your head up when I am a-talkin’ t’ yew, bo-wah!”

  I lifted my chin to look up at his face as I had been taught to do in Indian school. However, that did not please him either.

  “Are yew eyeballing me, bo-wah?” he bellowed. “Look straight ahead.”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, turning my head to look away fro
m him while keeping my voice soft to show respect.

  “What yew say, bo-wah? Yew speak up now!”

  “Yes, sir,” I said in a louder voice.

  “WHAT?”

  “YES, SIR,” I screamed. Then he nodded and moved on to his next victim in our line of confused Navajos who had been standing at attention for more than half an hour.

  I should add, my grandchildren, that not only did our drill instructor speak English in a strange way, he also used many colorful words and descriptive phrases that I won’t repeat. Even among the bilagáanaas, those words are not ones most people will say in public. Insulting new recruits, we would learn, was something that drill instructors were required to do. I think it was probably harder for young white men to be abused like that by their drill sergeants than it was for us Navajos. Being Indians, we were used to having white men shout at us and tell us we were worthless and stupid.

  As boot camp went on, I actually found that what they expected us to do was pretty simple. There was a routine to every day. All I had to do was listen closely and follow orders.

  One purpose of boot camp is to take young men who are out of shape and make them physically fit. However, just as Johnny Manuelito had said, what most young men found challenging was easy for us Indians. A five-mile hike in the sun carrying heavy packs was nothing much for a Navajo used to walking twenty miles to the trading post across a hot dry landscape to carry a hundred-pound bag of flour back home. Running, climbing, and doing calisthenics were easy for me.

  It surprised me to see how hard these things were for the white recruits in the other platoons at boot camp. After a long run, they would fall down onto the ground and some would be sick. We Navajos would just stand and wait for the next thing we had to do. No matter what it was, whether it was the obstacle course or crawling under barbed wire while real bullets were fired over us, we Navajos were just about the best.

  Even drilling was not a new thing for those of us who had been to boarding school. One of the first things they did at school was to teach all Indian children how to line up and march in step. But I remember one amusing thing about our marching. When you march in the Marines, you count in English like this: “One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.” That is called counting cadence. One day, though, our white sergeant ordered me to count cadence in Navajo. But counting takes longer in Navajo. By the time I had said one—“T’áá tá’i”—we had gone three steps.

  “Naaki,” I counted. “Two.” That took two more steps.

  “I think,” I said in Navajo, “that by the time I reach ten we will all be confused old men.”

  We burst out laughing. Even the sergeant shook his head in amusement. After that, he stuck to English for marching.

  There was also hand-to-hand combat and weapons training. I really enjoyed using those weapons. The first all-Navajo platoon had scored the highest marks ever on the pistol and rifle range. Our second platoon did just about as well. I qualified as an expert marksman. I also liked wrestling. Although I was not tall, I could easily pick up another man much larger than myself and throw him to the ground. But I did not like boxing. Hitting another person with my fists never seemed natural to me.

  There was only one thing in basic training that scared most of us. In fact, grandchildren, it almost caused me to wash out. Perhaps I should say “drown out.” It was the swimming test. I should have expected it. After all, we were called Marines and were part of amphibious units. That meant we would be called upon to attack the beaches, jumping out of boats and landing craft. I had thought, though, that swimming wouldn’t be that necessary. After all, those boats would just bring us right up to shore. I would learn later just how wrong I was about that!

  “How many of you sheep herders know how to swim?” our drill instructor growled. “Step forward if you do.”

  Howard Billiman started to step forward, then hesitated and stood where he was.

  The drill instructor shook his head and looked disgusted.

  “So what do you weak sisters expect to do if your boat sinks or you have to get across a blankety-blank river once you’re out in combat? You think you’re going to walk on the blankety-blank water?”

  “NO SIR!” we all shouted back.

  “No sir, indeed,” the drill instructor said, with a sinister smile on his face. “Follow me on the double.”

  He took us to a big swimming pool and lined us up. One by one, we were blindfolded. Then, without even a word of instruction, we were pushed into the deep end of the pool. Most of us came struggling back up to the surface, coughing and choking and clawing at the water.

  “Sink or swim, jarhead!” our drill instructor yelled at us.

  Surprisingly, even though we’d never been in deep water before, many of us Navajos did manage to get from one side of the pool to the other. Swimming, it seemed, was something that most people just do naturally when they have to. Those who floundered or panicked were pulled out, had the water pumped out of them, and then were pushed back in again. Real swimming instructions, teaching us how to swim the right way, only began after we succeeded in getting across that pool on our own.

  Then it was my turn. Howard Billiman, who had been just ahead of me in line, had actually managed to get from one side of the pool to the other, moving his hands the way a dog paddles with its paws.

  I can do that, I thought to myself.

  But when they grabbed me all thoughts went out of my head. I was so small that the drill instructor didn’t push me in. He lifted me up and tossed me like a rock. And that was how I swam, too, just like a rock. I sank right down to the bottom and did not come up. I stayed there, standing on my feet with my arms held out. I just could not move. Everyone else said they had never seen anything like it. I wasn’t struggling, just standing there, holding my breath.

  The drill instructor and the swimming instructor had to jump in and fish me out.

  “Listen, Begay,” they told me, “we’re not asking you to live down there in that pool. We want you to get out of it. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  This time when they threw me in, it was without the blindfold. Just as before, I sank straight to the bottom. But without the blindfold on, it was different. Although things looked blurred and made my eyes feel strange, I could actually see underwater. Step by step I walked across the bottom of the pool until I reached the shallow water and could climb out. I looked over at the swimming instructor. He had his hands over his face. I was not sure if he was laughing or crying.

  Eventually, I discovered that if I took a deeper breath I could float up in the water. I did learn to swim, but I was the last man in our platoon to do so.

  One funny thing that I learned later, from talking with other non-Indian Marines, was that many white men found it hard to get used to the food served at boot camp.

  “Man, that was the worst slop I ever ate,” my friend Smitty said to me in the South Pacific while we were sharing our memories of Boot.

  I did not know what to say back to him. Like all the other Navajos who went through boot camp, I thought the food was fine. Not only that, there was always enough to eat in the mess hall.

  Kee Etsicitty, one of the other Navajo men in our platoon, said just what I felt as we stood in line, filling our plates for the second time.

  “O-lá, this is sure different from Shiprock Boarding School,” Kee said. “Sometimes all we got to eat was one dry tortilla. In our free time, we hunted squirrels and grasshoppers. We even went through the garbage to scrape food from cans and jars.”

  Most of us Navajos gained weight during the weeks we were in Boot. We’d never seen so much good food before.

  It was at boot camp that I began to learn things about white men I’d never known. One day, in the mess hall, a young white recruit came up to me. He was tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. Everybody called him Georgia Boy.

  “Chief,” Georgia Boy said, “kin y’ read?”

  “Yes,” I told him.

&nb
sp; “What’s that there say?” He pointed at the sign on the wall.

  I wondered why he was testing me like that. Was he one of those people who thought all Indians were too stupid to read? But I read it aloud anyway. “Exit.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded. “That’s what they tole me it read. So mebbe y’ could read me this here letter I just got fum home. The parson helped Ma write it. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  He took a much-folded piece of paper from his wallet and carefully handed it to me.

  The letter was not very well written. It mostly said the farm was fine and she surely missed him. There were many X’s and O’s at the end of it.

  “I knows what them is,” he said, putting his finger on the X’s and O’s. “Loves and kisses.”

  It made me think of the love my own parents had for me. The two of us both sat for a while in silence after I finished reading the letter aloud.

  Georgia Boy reached out his hand and I placed the letter in it. He refolded it carefully and put it back into his wallet. Then he took my hand and shook it.

  “Thank y’,” he said. “Back home in them mountains, I never learnt no reading.” He looked over toward our drill instructor, who was walking through the mess hall, and his voice grew low and confidential. “I’ve managed so far to fool ’em. They all thinks I kin read, but I jes’ been putting things to memory. I’m afraid that if they find out they’ll jes’ kick me right out.”

  “If you want,” I said, “I can teach you.”

  The smile that came over his face was so broad that I knew I’d made a friend.

  All through Indian school we had been taught that white men knew everything. That day, for the first time, I realized several things. The first was that bilagáanaas are not born knowing everything. The second was that in many of the most important ways, white men are no different from Navajos. The third? That no matter who they are, people can always learn from each other.