Reliving the Past
Code Talkers return to Iwo Jima
By John Christian Hopkins / Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK—"It's hard to explain how I felt about going back to Iwo Jima," said Navajo Code Talker Samuel Tso. When he first saw the South Pacific island more than 60 years ago it was shrouded in smoke and dust. "When I got there, let me tell you, I was scared to death. If anybody says they weren't scared, there's something wrong with their mind."

As part of an educational project by the Santa Fe Media and Education Center and the Navajo Code Talkers Association, "Back to the Battlefields" took some of the Code Talkers and some of their relatives back the places where the young Marines changed history; back to places like Saipan, Guam and Okinawa.

When he left Iwo Jima, it was a desolate place, littered with tree stumps everywhere; upon his return Tso found the trees and grass had grown back. He had come back, in part, to try to find a dream he had left there six decades ago.

"My fellow Marines got shot to the right of me, got shot to the left of me, and I couldn't believe I survived. But I left a dream on that island," Tso recalled.

One night, in a dream, a beautiful young Indian maiden came to him and handed him something, she told him if he wore it he would not be killed, Tso said. The next day, as usual, he ignored mail call because he said his family couldn't write.

"I could write to them, but they couldn't respond," Tso said.

But another Marine came running back to him with a letter addressed to him. As soon as he opened it, he recognized the necklace the maiden of his dream had given him.

"As soon as I put it around my neck my fear disappeared," Tso said.

He returned to see if the maiden would come again to his dreams, but she did not.

When the Marines left Iwo Jima every foot of ground was covered with old shells or craters, said Code Talker Keith Little. The first few times he was asked, he declined to return to the island, he said.

"Our culture says don't go back because you don't want to bring back the evils of war," Little said. "No matter how much people tell you, war is no good. You don't get that picture in your mind unless you've been there and see how ugly it is."

Tso agreed. As the Marines stormed the beaches, falling all around him, he just kept going forward. He had no other choice.

"For every foot of space on that island a Marine died," Tso said.

Little is glad he returned because, he said, he found "emotional relief." The island that had been left utterly in chaos had been reborn and the natives of that island appreciated the American soldiers for their efforts.

"Some came and knelt before us, like we were deities, and gave us their blessings," Tso said.

"From Honolulu to Guam was a long drive," said Samuel J. Smith, president of the Code Talkers Association. "It took seven hours by plane."

He agreed that the natives were thrilled to see the Marines return. The Japanese would try to jam radio communications; so sometimes he'd have to brave enemy fire to hand deliver messages. It wasn't like the movie "Windtalkers," where Nicholas Cage was assigned to guard Adam Beach, he said.

"People ask me if I had a guard. I tell them I had a .45 on this side of me, and carried a .30 caliber carbine what did I need a guard for?" Smith said.

He remembered when some of the Navajos found some goats and butchered one for a feast. "At first us Navajos ate mutton by ourselves, but then those white boys showed up and they were still eating mutton when we left," Smith said.

He said the plans called for Iwo Jima to be taken in seven days. But it wasn't that simple.

"Somebody made a mistake with a pencil," Smith said.

The war is many years behind him, yet always with him, he explained. At night, the Japanese would continually whistle to play on the Marines' nerves. "To this day I don't like to hear anybody whistling around me. It bothers me," Smith said.

With major funding help from the State of New Mexico, the project hopes to create educational programming to keep the legend of the code talkers alive for future generations, said historian and producer George A. Colburn, who is president of the Santa Fe Media and Education Center.

None of the Code Talkers said that they pressured their own children to enlist. But some did anyway.

"I joined the Marines to honor my father," said Michael Smith, who acted as master of ceremonies for the event at the Navajo Nation Museum Tuesday. In 1981 he joined an all-Navajo platoon to honor the Code Talkers.

The code talkers faced many challenges along the way. Tso didn't like the way officers belittled the men.

"They would call us dumb Indians," Tso said. "When they started calling me chief, I didn't mind it was a promotion!"

Pearl Harbor bothered Samuel Smith and he wanted some payback against the Japanese.

"I joined the Marines because they were the fightingest bunch then," Smith said. He wanted to be a pilot and passed the test. But he had no diploma because he dropped out of school after his junior year to enlist.

At first he told his true age and was turned away, "so I went back in and said I made a mistake on my birth year. I lowered it by one and enlisted," Smith recalled.

"I wanted to find out why do people start wars, why do people get involved in them?" Tso said. "I found out you don't get freedom you have to fight for it."

John Christian Hopkins can be reached at 1-505-371-5443, or by email at Hopkins1960@hotmail.com.