The Navajo Code Talkers were the shining stars of Mount Soledad Memorial Association’s Veterans Day ceremony held on Saturday, Nov. 5 in a live in-person and virtual tribute ceremony.

“For the folks who are joining us online, if you could ever get out here in person and walk the walls, it is truly a wonderful experience that could be life-changing,” said Mark Bailey, master of ceremonies. “Bring the kids. Bring the next generation. Let them experience it.”

Bailey noted that, during World War II, “a warrior class, the Navajo nation, stood up to defend their country, coming up with a top-secret system of communication that was used in every major battle in the Pacific. They came to be known as the Navajo Code Talkers. We’re very fortunate – honored –

to have many of their family members with us here today.”

Phil Kendro, president/CEO of the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, paid homage to veterans and to the code talkers alike. “This beacon of freedom you’re looking at surrounding us here is the result of the sacrifices made by the men and women who wore the cloth of our nation,” he said. “Those who answer the call, know they put themselves in harm’s way, and many of them sacrificed their lives so others around the world might live in peace and freedom.”

Continued Kendro: “Their unwavering patriotism is an example for each of us to emulate. We’re (also) grateful to those family members who kept the home front strong and resilient, as many of us waged battles across the globe. We also remember those who are no longer with us, who paid the ultimate sacrifice, who are all forever remembered here on the walls behind us.”

Of the Navajo Code Talkers, Kendro commented: “They were the original Americans, who fought for their nation at a time when they were still not considered citizens of the United States, nor even allowed the freedom to vote. However, due to their strong work, persistence, and dedicated war ethos during World War II, those stories would not be forgotten.”

Kendro added that the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers went through Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and after initial training, were placed at Camp Elliott in San Diego 80 years ago. That, he noted, “was where they were sent to develop the code that would become the unbreakable code, and a key to winning the battles in the Pacific and ending WWII.”

Regan Hawthorne, CEO of the Navajo Code Talkers Museum and the son of a code talker, introduced himself initially speaking in his lyrical Native American tongue. He began by pointing out that “every veteran has a story. And as I walked about this magnificent monument, I noticed 6,000-plus stories that define who we are as Americans.”

Hawthorne said between 400 and 430 Navajo teenagers enlisted in the USMC “at a time when America was in dire need of secure communications. These men thoroughly embodied what was taught in the traditional (Navajo) upbringing when mothers and fathers would instruct their boys, and they would give them this advice: ‘It’s up to you if you want to succeed.’ I doubt if those teenagers knew that, literally, freedom was up to them.”

Added Hawthorne: “The arduous task of creating a military code out of a language that was considered to be sacred, and knew nothing of warfare equipment and materials, was a challenge. But the 29 men that were sequestered took their hard language and morphed it into the single, indigenous language ever codified by the military. At its apex, the Navajo language code, literally, sank the rising sun.”

Grateful to be a direct descendant of a talker who used that code in the defense of liberty and freedom, Hawthorne concluded, “I’m thankful, today, to be an American.”

No Mt. Soledad Veterans Day observance would be complete without a military flyover. And on this day, there were two military plane flyovers of the memorial mountaintop with its towering cross.

NAVAJO CODE TALKERS

Code talkers were people employed by the military during wartime to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication. The term is now usually associated with United States service members who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages.

During World War II, there were approximately 400 to 500 Native Americans in the U.S. Marine Corps whose primary job was to transmit secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formally or informally developed codes built upon their native languages. The code talkers improved the speed of encryption and decryption of communications in front-line operations.

There were two code types used during World War II. Type one codes were formally developed based on the languages of the Comanche, Hopi, Meskawaki, and Navajo peoples. They used words from their languages for each letter of the English alphabet. Messages could be encoded and decoded by using a simple substitution cipher where the ciphertext was the native language word.

Type two code was informal and directly translated from English into the native language. If there was no word in the native language to describe a military word, code talkers used descriptive words. For example, the Navajo did not have a word for submarine, so they translated it as “iron fish,” or, referring to a reconnaissance helicopter, they referred to it as a “hummingbird.”

HISTORY OF MT. SOLEDAD VETERANS MEMORIAL

At the height of WWII, Mt. Soledad was used as an observation point and radio transmission tower to monitor the real threat of Japanese sea forces. Easter Services were broadcast to troops from Mt. Soledad connecting those serving at home and abroad with home.

Three crosses have been built on the site of Mt. Soledad. The first was a simple redwood structure erected in 1913, which was later torn down by vandals. A second cross was built in 1923 from stucco over a wood frame. It stood for 29 years and was used as a gathering place for Easter Sunday until 1952 when it was destroyed in a windstorm.

In 1954, the third cross, which still stands today, was installed as a centerpiece of the memorial. It was erected as a lasting monument for service members who sacrificed their lives during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.

The Mount Soledad Memorial Association created and signed its articles of incorporation as the third cross was installed. The goal of the organization has always been to honor service members who honorably fought for our nation’s freedoms living and deceased.

The memorial with its 29-foot-tall cross became the cause of a landmark court case that embroiled the monument for decades. From 1989 to 2015, Mt. Soledad’s cross faced several legal challenges.

On May 31, 1989, a Vietnam War veteran sued the City, claiming the cross violated both the California and United States Constitutions. A long series of court cases followed to determine the fate of the landmark. The City also attempted to sell the cross on multiple occasions but was continually blocked by court rulings and voters.

Ultimately, legal matters were settled in September 2016. The Mount Soledad Memorial Association was able to purchase the land under the cross for $1.4 million from the Dept. of Defense in July 2015.

In the ’90s, Mount Soledad Memorial Association began construction on a new project that would accomplish the goal their association set out to do in the beginning: honor all veterans, regardless of status, rank, race, religion, or creed.

Architect James Alcorn entered the preliminary designs for this new wave of the memorial. His initial designs featured personalized black granite plaques, engraved with photos and information about each veteran being honored, mounted on walls ringing the center hill.

Today, more than 5,800 individual veteran tributes, embedded on black granite plaques, are mounted onto 11 curved walls honoring military veterans.

HISTORY OF VETERANS DAY, ORIGINALLY ARMISTICE DAY

Veterans Day is a U.S. federal holiday observed annually on Nov. 11, for honoring military veterans of the United States Armed Services who were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable. It marks the anniversary of the end of World War I. Major hostilities of WWI were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. At the urging of major U.S. veteran organizations, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

Veterans Day is distinct from Memorial Day, a U.S. public holiday in May, as it celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. Memorial Day honors those who have died while in military service.

Another military holiday that also occurs in May, Armed Forces Day, honors those currently serving in the U.S. military. Additionally, Women Veterans Day is recognized by a growing number of U.S. states that specifically honor women who have served in the U.S. military. While the holiday is commonly printed as Veteran’s Day or Veterans’ Day, the official spelling is with no apostrophe “because it is not a day that ‘belongs’ to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.”

EXCERPTS FROM WOODROW WILSON WHITE HOUSE ADDRESS NOV. 11, 1919

“A year ago today our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities, and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and more just set of international relations… The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men. To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations.”