thedrifter
10-25-07, 05:44 AM
Code talker's words still resonate
War hero - Navajo veteran Teddy Draper Sr. shares his story at Glencoe High School
Thursday, October 25, 2007
MICHELLE TRAPPEN
The Oregonian
HILLSBORO -- Laura Pappas and Chelsea Dennis -- like everyone else in the audience -- couldn't quite catch every word spoken by the old man at the podium Wednesday.
Nor could the Glencoe High School students relate. World War II sounded like a million years ago to the two 16-year-olds.
But Teddy Draper Sr. served as a Navajo Code Talker during the war, something actor Nicolas Cage made cool in the 2002 movie "Windtalkers." And Draper watched U.S. Marines raise the flag on Iwo Jima, a fact he relayed to superiors in a coded message.
So the girls listened, along with hundreds of classmates seated in the high school auditorium. And they clapped, for Draper and for 40 or so veterans who came to pay tribute to one of America's few surviving Navajo Code Talkers.
"He was really hard to understand," Pappas said later. "But it was interesting that he knew this special code. I didn't know anything about it before today."
Glencoe's journalism teacher, Juanita Reiter, heard the 84-year-old speak in January and felt so moved, she wanted students and the veterans to hear his story.
She also wanted to give her journalism students a chance to interview and record living history.
"I want young people to see the value of recording the story of our elders," Reiter told the packed audience.
Draper's son, Teddy Draper Jr., began the talk explaining how his father and four uncles all served as code talkers during World War II. None of the men told their families what they did until 1968, when the U.S. government declassified the code.
"We were told we would be put in jail if we said anything," the elder Draper later told the audience.
U.S. Marines turned to the Navajos because they wanted an undecipherable code, and Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity. It has no alphabet or symbols and is spoken only on Navajo land in the Southwest United States.
A Navajo Code Talker receiving a message heard a string of seemingly unrelated Navajo words. The code talker translated each Navajo word into its English equivalent, then used the first letter of that word to help build another word. The word Navy, for instance, might have come across as "tsah," meaning needle; "wol-la-chee," meaning ant; "ah-keh-di-glini," meaning victor; and "tsah-ah-dzoh," meaning yucca.
Draper said he learned about code talkers only after U.S. Marines recruited him in 1942.
Three years later, after deciphering and sending hundreds of codes, Draper landed with the 5th Marine Division on Iwo Jima in the South Pacific. Five days later, he was on top of Mount Suribachi watching fellow Marines plant the now famous flag.
"We sent the coded message: 'We have raised the flag; we have taken hill,' " Draper said.
Like his fellow 400 or so code talkers, Draper received little recognition for his work until long after the war. The code's declassification in 1968 improved matters; Draper finally started receiving benefits, and in 2005, he was awarded a Purple Heart for being wounded by Japanese artillery on Iwo Jima.
It also reinvigorated the Navajo Nation. Before then, Draper Jr. said, anybody who spoke Navajo in school got "their mouths washed out with lye soap."
"We were still being abused for using our language," he said. "But after the declassification, there was a tremendous renaissance of Navajo history, culture and language.
"I could never be prouder of my father for being a part of it."
Ellie
War hero - Navajo veteran Teddy Draper Sr. shares his story at Glencoe High School
Thursday, October 25, 2007
MICHELLE TRAPPEN
The Oregonian
HILLSBORO -- Laura Pappas and Chelsea Dennis -- like everyone else in the audience -- couldn't quite catch every word spoken by the old man at the podium Wednesday.
Nor could the Glencoe High School students relate. World War II sounded like a million years ago to the two 16-year-olds.
But Teddy Draper Sr. served as a Navajo Code Talker during the war, something actor Nicolas Cage made cool in the 2002 movie "Windtalkers." And Draper watched U.S. Marines raise the flag on Iwo Jima, a fact he relayed to superiors in a coded message.
So the girls listened, along with hundreds of classmates seated in the high school auditorium. And they clapped, for Draper and for 40 or so veterans who came to pay tribute to one of America's few surviving Navajo Code Talkers.
"He was really hard to understand," Pappas said later. "But it was interesting that he knew this special code. I didn't know anything about it before today."
Glencoe's journalism teacher, Juanita Reiter, heard the 84-year-old speak in January and felt so moved, she wanted students and the veterans to hear his story.
She also wanted to give her journalism students a chance to interview and record living history.
"I want young people to see the value of recording the story of our elders," Reiter told the packed audience.
Draper's son, Teddy Draper Jr., began the talk explaining how his father and four uncles all served as code talkers during World War II. None of the men told their families what they did until 1968, when the U.S. government declassified the code.
"We were told we would be put in jail if we said anything," the elder Draper later told the audience.
U.S. Marines turned to the Navajos because they wanted an undecipherable code, and Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme complexity. It has no alphabet or symbols and is spoken only on Navajo land in the Southwest United States.
A Navajo Code Talker receiving a message heard a string of seemingly unrelated Navajo words. The code talker translated each Navajo word into its English equivalent, then used the first letter of that word to help build another word. The word Navy, for instance, might have come across as "tsah," meaning needle; "wol-la-chee," meaning ant; "ah-keh-di-glini," meaning victor; and "tsah-ah-dzoh," meaning yucca.
Draper said he learned about code talkers only after U.S. Marines recruited him in 1942.
Three years later, after deciphering and sending hundreds of codes, Draper landed with the 5th Marine Division on Iwo Jima in the South Pacific. Five days later, he was on top of Mount Suribachi watching fellow Marines plant the now famous flag.
"We sent the coded message: 'We have raised the flag; we have taken hill,' " Draper said.
Like his fellow 400 or so code talkers, Draper received little recognition for his work until long after the war. The code's declassification in 1968 improved matters; Draper finally started receiving benefits, and in 2005, he was awarded a Purple Heart for being wounded by Japanese artillery on Iwo Jima.
It also reinvigorated the Navajo Nation. Before then, Draper Jr. said, anybody who spoke Navajo in school got "their mouths washed out with lye soap."
"We were still being abused for using our language," he said. "But after the declassification, there was a tremendous renaissance of Navajo history, culture and language.
"I could never be prouder of my father for being a part of it."
Ellie