Samuel Tom Holiday, one of the last surviving Navajo Code Talkers, died Monday evening (June 11) just nine days after his 94th birthday celebration at his home in Tódinéeshzhee'.
Quick Facts:
He was born near the Utah-Arizona border, within Monument Valley.
He was forced to attend a government-run boarding school, like many Native American children were in those days, to attempt to strip them of their cultural identity. Stripping of identities, just as they had done to many who came to this country as immigrants, the indentured, or as slaves
Samuel Tom Holiday enlisted in the Marines in 1943, when he was nineteen years old.
The code talkers consisted of hundreds of Navajo at the height of the operation.
The Navajo Code Talkers used Navajo stories to communicate top secret information, among other tactics. The code was never broken by the Japanese.
For more details about his life and legacy:
