TSOSIE-DAVID

NAVAJO  CODE  TALKER

 

David W. Tsosie was born on December 15, 1923, at Cove, Arizona.  As a young boy he attended government boarding schools nine months of the year where classes were taught only in English and students were prohibited from talking in their native language and were punished when they did so.  Tsosie spoke Navajo when at home and with friends when they were alone.  During the early phase of World War II the Marine Corps was persuaded to develop a code using the Navajo language, a complex, unwritten language that has no alphabet or symbols and includes guttural and nasal sounds, voice intonations, and dialects.  Hard to speak, it proved to be an invaluable resource and utterly confused the Japanese who were never able to break the Navajo code.

 

When the Marine Corps found that the original group of Code Talkers could accurately transmit, receive and decipher messages in minutes as compared to hours by traditional code methods the demand for additional Navajo speaking recruits quickly increased.  In 1943 Tsosie was recruited into the Marine Corps, underwent recruit training at San Diego and was graduated from Code Talker School at Camp Pendleton where he successfully memorized the difficult code without written notes.  Tsosie was then shipped overseas where he joined the 2^nd Marine Division and participated in the June 1944 bloody Battle of Saipan.  He has said that Japanese snipers, some perched in the top of palm trees, were known to specifically target radio operators and on one occasion a marine standing next to him saw a sniper in a palm tree and shot him.  Later, during the battle Tsosie was severely injured when flying shrapnel hit him in the leg for which he was sent to the hospital at Pearl Harbor to recuperate.  During his hospital stay his brother, a fellow Code Talker, visited him and Tsosie later said, “He just bawled and cried.  He was so happy I was alive.”

 

After the war Tsosie enrolled in Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.  After graduation he went to work for a uranium mining company followed by employment for the State of New Mexico.  As he grew older, feeling his old injury and haunted by combat flashbacks, Tsosie returned to a traditional Navajo life of herding sheep.  When they were discharged following World War II, the Code Talkers were cautioned to not speak of their duties during the war.  The Navajo Code Talker program was finally declassified in 1968 and in 2001 Congress authorized the Congressional Gold Medal to be issued to the 29 original Code Talkers who developed the program and the Congressional Silver Medal to those who joined the program after its initial phase.  Tsosie was residing in a nursing and rehabilitation center in 2001, was notified he would be awarded the Congressional Silver Medal, but only several days later was told he was uninvited to attend the ceremony as his military records stated he was a mechanic during his service and there was no record of having been a Code Talker.  Authorities have reported there are numerous former Code Talkers whose records fail to contain accurate information concerning their World War II assignment because their work was secret and many were thus given military occupational specialties such as mechanic or other job titles.  When fellow Code Talkers learned Tsosie had been “uninvited,” they commenced a program to rectify the situation and in 2002 Tsosie was finally awarded the Congressional Silver Medal for his Navajo Code Talker service.  Tsosie passed away on January 20, 2007, and has been laid to rest at the Shiprock Community Cemetery in San Juan County, New Mexico.

 

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