A committee of the Navajo Nation Council unanimously approved Legislation requesting the U.S. Congress to appropriate funding for the construction of a Navajo Code Talker national monument in Washington, D.C. to recognize their service in combat and for utilizing the Navajo language to aid the U.S. military in World War II.
Legislation sponsor Council Delegate Edmund Yazzie said the idea for the national monument stemmed from a veterans meeting in Thoreau, in which Navajo elders who visited Washington, D.C. said they did not see any type of memorial praising the Navajo Code Talkers for their valiant Service in World War II.
In April 1942, the U.S. Marine Corps recruited 29 Navajo men to be trained as radio operators, and were later coined as Navajo Code Talkers. They developed a code using the Navajo language to communicate military messages in the Pacific, in which approximately 263 terms were created and Messages exchanged that only the Code Talkers understood.
During the course of the war, the U.S. Marines recruited over 350 Navajo Code Talkers. Council Delegate Nelson S. BeGaye said he supports the legislation and pointed out that there are current requests from veterans stating that they would like an official museum to be constructed within the Navajo Nation to honor the Navajo Code Talkers.