Native American Code Talkers: Life before the Code

Native American Code Talkers: Life before the Code

Nadine Duchaine

This paper goes to explore Native American code talkers during World War II and the adverse effects boarding school regulations had upon them. The highly-classified project was a strategic defensive movement used on the Pacific front but indirectly used on the European. The code talkers and Native American enlisted had been forcibly confined to government boarding schools before their military service. The military setting in boarding schools crafted rebellion against the extermination of their culture and language. The code talkers who attended boarding schools who engaged in a form of rebellion, developed a code with the use of their language to give aid to a government that attempted to eradicate that language. Autobiographies and first hand accounts from former boarding school pupils are used in order gain perspective on the traumas and eradicate attempts from the government run boarding schools. Military records will provide insight into the need and use of native languages for the ambition of the war. The recruitment of Native Americans from around the country and the members of the Navajo tribe will provide details into how many native enlisted were encouraged towards the Marine branch and the code talker program and those specifically sought out on the reservation. The methods of reservation recruitment are essential in order to gain knowledge into the full impact of boarding school affects upon native youth. The lasting affects of boarding schools upon tribes whose male members served in World War II will explore the adverse and negative effects left.