80 years later, Navajo Code Talker marks group’s early days

PHOENIX — It’s been 80 years since the first Navajo Code Talkers joined the Marines, transmitting messages using a code based on their then-unwritten native language to confound Japanese military cryptologists during World War II — and Thomas H. Begay, one of the last living members of the group, still remembers the struggle. President Ronald Reagan established Navajo Code Talkers Day in 1982 and the Aug. 14 holiday honors all the tribes associated with the war effort. It’s also an Arizona state holiday and Navajo Nation holiday on the vast reservation that occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah. Begay and his family came from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Phoenix for Sunday’s event at the Wesley Bolin Plaza where a Navajo Code Talker statue is displayed.