GOODLUCK-JOHN

NAVAJO  CODE  TALKER

In 1942 the Marine Corps recruited a group of Navajo men to perform a secret mission, to develop an indestructible, undecipherable code which could be broadcast openly and confuse the enemy.  Using their nati8ve language, these Navajo Marines created a code transmitted by radio and telephone which the Japanese were never able to decipher.  By the end of World War II, over 400 Navajo Marines served their country, became known as Navajo Codee Talkers.  In 1942, it took machines 30 minutes to encode, transmit and decode a three-line English message.  The Navajo Code Talkers became so proficient that they could perform the same task in 20-seconds. 

John V. Goodluck was recruited into the Marine Corps during 1943 and served as a Navajo Code Talker until his discharge in 1945.  He was born March 15, 1924, aboard the Navajo reservation in Lukachukai, Arizona, attended St. Catherine Indian School and Dine College.  He underwent basic boot camp training at San Diego, followed by instruction at the Navajo Code Talker School at Camp Pendleton before assignment to the Third Marine Division and saw combat duty in Guam, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Iwo Jima.

The Navajo Code Talkers were noted for their unusual proficiency and officials proclaimed that their actions were especially important during the Battle of Iwo Jima and that without their actions the Marines might not have been successful in capturing the island.  The irony of being asked to use their Native language to fight on behalf of America was not lost on the code talkers, many of whom had been forced to attend government or religious-run boarding schools that tried to assimilate Native peoples and would punish students for speaking in their traditional language.  At the conclusion of World War Two, the Navajos were instructed to keep their activities secret and it was not until 1968 that the government openly acknowledged their wartime activities.  On July 26, 2001, President George W. Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to the small group of original Navajo Code Talkers and the Congressional Silver Medal was presented to all code talkers who had followed.

Following his Marine Corps service, Goodluck returned to Lukachukai where he became a farmer and rancher.  He died April 1, 2000, and is buried at Lukachukai Cemetery in Apache County, Arizona.  He was survived by his wife, four sons, seventeen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

                  

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)