Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 225 - Navajo Code Talkers

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Can you imagine fighting a war for a country that had removed you from the land your ancestors lived on for centuries - a country actively trying to erase your language and culture? That’s exactly what the Navajo Code Talkers did in WW2. The Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone and radio in their native language - a code that the Japanese never broke. The US government had been trying to erase the Navajo language for decades. Luckily they weren't successful, for the Navajo language and its code talkers contributed greatly to Allied victory over the Japanese. A small group of brave meat sacks built an unbreakable code from a language they’d been forbidden to speak in their childhood. Pretty crazy. The inspirational story of the Navajo code talkers, a deep dive into the Pacific theater of World War II, and of course so much more, today, on Timesuck! Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uYl5QxBv5mE Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Can you imagine fighting a war for a country that removed you from the land your ancestors lived on for centuries? A country currently actively trying to erase your language and culture. That's exactly what the Navajo code talkers did in World War II. The Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the US Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six marine divisions, marine radar battalions and marine parachute units, transmitting messages by telephone radio in their native language. A code that the Japanese never broke.

The idea to use Navajo for secure communications came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajo's, and one of the few non-navajo's on earth who spoke their incredibly complicated language fluently. Johnston reared on the Navajo reservation, was a World War I veteran who knew of the military search for a code

that would withstand all attempts to decipher it. He also knew that native languages, notably Choctaw, had been used in World War I to encode messages successfully before. And these languages had recently nearly been wiped out by the US government in an assimilation attempt to force natives to adopt American mainstream culture at the expense of their own traditions. And now that same government would be using these languages to help the World War II war

effort. While some tribes were still sending their children to boarding schools where students were punished for speaking in their mother tongues, soldiers were using those same languages to outmaneuver the Japanese in the South Pacific. How ironic. Despite these circumstances, the Navajo Code talker still fought. They still wanted to make their country proud. They also wanted to make their parents and communities proud by using the Navajo language

to contribute to the war effort. These brave meat sacks built an unbreakable code from the language they'd been forbidden to speak in their childhood. The inspirational story of the Navajo Codebreakers, a deep dive into the Pacific theater of World War Two, and of course, so much more today on Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck, you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck.

You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, meet Sack. Hail Nimrod. Stay close, those Duffina. Praiseable Jangels and sing us into a better year, triple M. It's fucking here. Another year. 2021.

Does it feel kind of surreal to you? It feels kind of surreal to me. 2020 is over. It's actually over. Um, Dan, come in, it's a master's sucker. Spoke in area, Dwayne, show fur. Krolls Cafe Bus Boy and you are listening to time suck. Thank you to the many, uh, meat sacks who sent in the nicest emails regarding my grandfather's recent passing, uh,

so very kind. We have some great time sucker updates for those of you who listen to the whole show at the end of today's show. And sometimes those updates are my favorite part of these episodes. Uh, what I don't have today are any more updates up front. Still waiting to come back with stand updates, still too much uncertainty out there. Gonna be a while probably for the tour kicks off again. So we have this show to do, which is plenty. And let's get into it. We dig it into a topic today that covers some very important, very brave meat sacks and

the invaluable contributions they made to the preservation of democracy worldwide. When World War II was not going well for the Allies, when Japan was conquering islands in the Pacific bombing Pearl Harbor, devastating the American public. When Hitler and his big military hate machine was butchering its way through Europe, toppling governments and moving ahead with plans of world, and genocidal devastation. It was scary times for the US and many other allied nations, the UK, Soviet Union, China, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, so many others. There were fighting two very powerful enemies on different sides of the world. The allies needed all the help they could get, and they got some from an unusual place, from a group of brave

men living in a nation inside another nation. So they were talking about the Navajo code talkers and a lot more. Men fighting for a country at odds with their own culture come join me and let's enjoy their fascinating complex and inspirational story, yip to the fucking y'all. Month after month after the US inter-World War II followed the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese military intelligence officers continually cracked every code the US military through into its operations.

Japan was a formidable foe. One of two terrifying opponents, the US were now fighting. They're being, of course, Hitler's Germany. Nearly 10 million well-armed troops with a powerful Air Force in Navy. There was also Italy's roughly three million troops, you know, onto the fastest Mussolini to worry about. They posed a smaller threat to the US. They were poorly trained and not well-armed, but also strong enough that you couldn't

totally ignore them. There was a lot going on. Imperial Japan had over 7 million highly trained troops to worry about. And Japan had the Imperial Navy. Third largest Navy in the world in 1941. And unlike Britain in the US, they had the two largest navies in the world. They didn't have to divide their naval power between the Pacific and the Atlantic. In order for the US to outmaneuver and defeat mighty Japan in the Pacific, they needed to code the Japanese couldn't break across the Atlantic. And Europe, the Germans were also winning in the code wars against the Allies and the Enigma machine.

We covered these incredibly complicated machines and it's super smart, Polish mass nerd monsters who cracked them over and over again and suck 217. Suck is the sister suck of that suck. As we covered in the Enigma suck, breaking codes or making unbreakable codes, it was the difference between life and death. Often, the difference between life and death, often was the difference between life and death. Victory and defeat, stakes couldn't have been higher. Get your code broken, you lose another battle.

More your troops die. You lose enough battles and troops, you lose the whole damn war, and then the whole map could look real, real different today. Polish, French, and English would end up beating the enigma machine with math. The US would try something else to make their unbreakable code. Or we try something else to make their unbreakable code or we use something else, you know, to form their unbreakable code because fuck math, right? America doesn't need nerds. We sure shit don't need fake ass science.

No thanks. Nice try. You deep state serving, full-vid and fake news, pushin', illuminati puppets. You, S, hey, you, S, Hey, Maricop! Oh! Uh, JK, uh, gosh dang. No, that was what I believe at all. But the US really did not turn to mass for real, at least not to create the codes that they would use. They did use mass, of course, to break the codes as we talked about in that in Nigma

suck. The US military turned to something they'd used before to code messages, something they'd used back in World War I, a sparsely spoken native language. The army was the first to recruit a number of tribes beginning in late 1940, recruiting commandeers, chaktaus, hopis, and Cherokees to serve in a special office in Oklahoma to develop codes to be used in Europe against the Nazis. About two years later, the Marines turned to the Navajo Nation on the recommendation of a white civil engineer from Los Angeles who grew up speaking the Navajo language.

Marine Corps leadership initially selected 29 Navajo men to create a code out of their complex and maybe more importantly totally unwritten Navajo language. And these men would become the original Navajo code docker's. Locked in a room for weeks on end, they figured out how to translate three lines of English in just 20 seconds much faster. There's a 30 minutes that existing code breaking machines, you know, used or took. Once they started, the Navajo code talkers will go on to participate in every subsequent major marine operation in the Pacific theater and they gave them arrangements critical advantage throughout the war. The code they developed based on the Navajo language will become the only secret military language to go unbroken in modern warfare history.

The code gave the US and allied forces huge advantage against Japan during World War 2 countless lives saved. And what makes their contributions, especially remarkable, is the fact that they had such a little reason to assist the US government in this way. Today's suck is absolutely drenched in irony. The Navajo were asked to fight for a country that had been fighting against them specifically for over 150 years. And even crazier, they're asked by the US government to develop a code out of a language

that just a generation before, the same government had tried to eradicate. In certain parts of the country, the government was still trying to eradicate, you know, native languages. Wall World War II was being fought. And afterwards, it was rough as like asking your neighbor to borrow their snowblower after a massive storm bears your driveway. After spending the entirety of all the years you'd lived next to this neighbor, previous to the storm, trying to destroy said snowblower.

Just say, Jim, Jim, hey, you know that snowblower yours? I tried running down with my truck a few months ago. Yeah, the one I swung a sledgehammer out when you walked back in your garage to grab a pair of gloves at one time. Yeah, yeah, the one I alwaysung a sledgehammer out when you walked back in your garage to grab a pair of gloves at one time Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, the one I always shoot at was my 22 whenever you try using it on your driveway Uh-huh, that's the one. Can I borrow that? Yeah, now I need it now. I do kind of want it. Sorry about all that trouble before Fuck it's fucking insane. We're gonna do more the details the US attempt at erasing the Navajo language that would later help them greatly In a bit and as I mentionedasing the Navajo language that would later help them greatly in a bit. And as I mentioned earlier, the Navajo, not the only tribe, they helped the US War effort after repeatedly getting fucked over by the US government for centuries.

By the end of the war between 13 and 15 additional tribes used their languages to help relay secure messages on World War II battlefields. Travel co-tokers would serve in all branches of the US military during the war. And before we really dig into their contributions, and not just World War Two, but also World War One, take a brief moment to look at language in general. I find this might be my favorite part of this episode today. To help wrap our brains around how the Navajo language is so unique. And now take it another part.

This is maybe my second favorite part. This is my favorite part, maybe towards you. Language is one of the most important things that we meet saxes have ever created. It gives us the ability to contemplate our own existences, to form civilizations, to form complex interpersonal relationships and work together on an enumerous variety of tasks. Eyes you know, and an accomplished linguist. I almost speak one language fluently.

I am nearly fully lingual. Not buyer, tri-lingual, just lingual. Gonna sabot true. And ironically, I make my living speaking. That's weird world. Anyway, the oldest languages include Sanskrit, Tamil or Tamil, Samarian, Hebrew, Yuskara, language of the Basque people

from the borders of Spain and France, the Basque language, especially fascinating. Thought to be the oldest European language, older than Latin, not related to any other language in Europe or elsewhere. We think the languages, I listed, are some of the world's oldest, oldest, if not the oldest, but we don't know for sure, because we don't know what existed before the written languages. We have records for now.

Right, these are the oldest languages we have found written records for. There could be numerous languages that never developed a written component, you know, that existed for centuries or millennia prior. The question of how old language is still being debated by language. Most currently seem to agree that it began around the time when modern humans, homo sapiens evolved in Africa with modern skull shapes and vocal cords,

sometime between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago. With the proper tools in place, skull size, brain, voice box, language evolved. A lot of theories out there as to why we evolved language in the first place. A study of Makak monkeys supports the idea that languages may have evolved to replace grooming as a better way of forging interpersonal bonds. And I read that as language evolved at least least partly, out of our ancestor desires, to get laid. Right?

One little dude monkey, long time ago, trying to impress some little lady monkey, like groomer a little monkey hair, picking some lice out, maybe doing a better job than other dude monkeys, and suddenly some other ancient prodigy monkey says something like, Be careful! Be beautiful! Like in monkey speak. And suddenly all the other dude monkeys like, fuck, we need to speak too. Lice grab, no cut now.

A heck, me speak now, gusting. Something like that, you know, all the monkeys are raising their language game. Obviously, to jump from no language to language, you know, wasn't that abrupt? But I think there's quite a bit of truth to that analogy. Two other theories, Posit, that our ancestors began to develop language by imitating natural sounds,

like bird calls and animal noises, or a human communication may have started with the emanation of involuntary sounds, like distress sounds from pain or surprise, whales of sadness, cheers of joy or triumph, maybe organisms, and then that evolved in some kind of early language. Language is so important that some of our most enduring myths and folklore dedicated to trying to explain how, why we invented it, the tower of Babel, explained in the biblical book of Genesis, tells of a tower built in the land of Shinar or Babylon. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city, and a tower that would reach up into literal heaven.

Several generations after the Great Flood and God who, according to this story, didn't want people to reach heaven, disrupted their work by confusing the language of the workers so they could no longer understand what another. Then he knocked them off the tower and then he dispersed them all over the world. And wherever they landed, a new culture arose with a new language. Most religious types seem to view this story as being, you know, highly symbolic. Some do view it as literal truth, created by God, flicking humans off a tower, so we couldn't sneak into a magic cloud heaven, like a kid flicking ants off a popsicle stick, or not, probably not. Currently, there are between 7,175 languages spoken in the world.

So if the literal stuff is true, that's a lot of dudes getting flipped off a tower that day. Most of the 7,000 plus languages are spoken by only a small group of people. Just 23 of all of those languages are spoken by more than half of the world, 7.8 billion people. English sometimes credited with getting the most overall use currently,

at 1.132 billion speakers. Mandarin Chinese has somewhere around 1.117 billion. Those are the two Titans. If you can speak English and Mandarin, you can get by, if not thrive linguistically in damn near any place in the world. Spanish, Hindi, French, Arabic, also way up there. Spanish is the language with the second most native speakers

in the world with 460 million people. Hindi has 615 million total speakers, followed by 534 million total Spanish speakers, 280 million French speakers, 274 million Arabic speakers. Polish, a Slavic language has zero speakers. Interestingly, it does have around 55 million grunters and poop throws. Ah, JK. It does have around 55 million grunters and poop throws. Ah, take it. It does have around 55 million speakers. These numbers to be clear estimates. They're always fluctuating. No one has surveyed every single human being on the planet yet, also hard to define what

speaking a language means in terms of how proficient you are. You know, those numbers give us a general idea. For comparison, as of a 2002 US census, only around 170,000 people speak Navajo. I wish I could tell you how many people spoke it back in 1940, you know, around World War 2 time. But the 1940 census takers did not give a shit about native languages. They didn't ask those questions. Within the US, as of 2019, between 311, 350 languages being spoken by a population of around 328 million. This is the fifth most languages per nation in the world, roughly 150 of those languages are native languages.

Interestingly, the nation with the most languages spoken is Papua New Guinea, a remarkable 280, or I'm sorry, 820 different languages coexist over 11% of the known languages in the world. Some of them currently spoken only by a handful literally of, well, not literally, you could fit your hand, but like five, six, 10, 15 people, you know, the elderly members of just one tiny village. A number of languages go extinct every year. It's just strange thought to me. At least 230 languages went extinct between 1950 and 2000 right 230 at least just completely gone forever now Uh, the pace at which languages is going extinct is accelerating Imagine being the last person on earth to speak your language

How much harder would that make your life everything else stays the same but now no one else speaks your language Think about how difficult it would be to learn a new language if there were literally no translators for you anywhere else on earth. Like I can fumble my way through Spanish on a trip badly, mostly because I can ask, how much did you say and then I insert whatever word I need in Spanish here in Espanol. You know, it just means how do you say this word in Spanish? I can ask that only of someone who speaks both English and Spanish. I'm in a place where no one speaks the word of English, totally fucked.

You know, because then it boils down to just like, point and shit, holding shit, displaying it, shrugging shoulders. I don't know what this, how do you say, this thing here. You know, I'm being frustrated, probably kicking stuff, yelling, letting which is so important to survival.

Think about how hard it would be to hold down a job if you didn't speak to local tongue. Could you get by? That's sure, many do. It doesn't look easy. Could you achieve some high level of success? Probably not unlikely. Hard to run a business if you can't talk to your customers.

You know, definitely gives you a severe disadvantage. Imagine if suddenly your phone, computer, all your devices only revealed information and language you did not understand. Every book, street sign, instruction manual, foreign language, you can't speak a word of. Everyone around you, speaking some foreign tongue, I would turn your world upside down. So grateful, I'm surrounded by people

who share the same tongue, makes life a hell of a lot easier. Estimated that of the world's more than 7,000 languages, a half of them will be extinct in just 30 years, by 2050. As people give up their smaller local languages for ones that are better for living in a globalized world, currently on average, every two weeks another language goes extinct. Now let's take a closer look at Native American

or American Indian tongues languages. In the US, as I said earlier, of the roughly 350 languages spoken, about 150, spoken by estimated 350,000 American tribal members. The number of American Indian languages varies from 115 to 175 depending on sources, hard to pin down exactly with the information that's out there. The Navajo language, the focus of today's suck is the most spoken native language by far right now with nearly 170,000 speakers. The next most common big drop off is you pick 19,750 spoken in Alaska.

Second most spoken language has less than 20,000 speakers. One Lakers home basketball game with the Staples Center full of fans. That's it. No more. And once you get outside of the top seven drops incredibly dramatically drops to four digits. Less than 10,000 people still speak Zuni, most living in New Mexico. The Neds Pierce, near Rye Group, and central North Central Idaho, less than 1,000 speakers. Local Quaradolane tribe around the Suck dungeon,

less than 200, around 175 speakers left, not enough to fill the stands of a high school basketball game, not even close. The largest tribal group left in the US, the Cherokee with over 700,000 people, and only roughly 2000 fluent in Cherokee right now. Most of them over the age of 60. According to the Indigenous Language Institute, there were once more than 300 Indigenous languages in the U.S., but the estimate only 20 will be around when we get to 2050.

By the middle of the 20th century, roughly two-thirds of all indigenous American languages, County North, Central, and South America, had already died out, or were on the brink of extinction. 99% of the American Indian languages, Indian languages still spoken today, are in danger of quickly becoming extinct. The overwhelming majority of American Indians, they speak only English. According to a 2016 census info of the roughly 6.7 million Americans and Alaska natives, 73% of those age five years

are older speak only English. There's a bunch of programs, initiatives, with a goal of preserving native languages, but it's challenging. Most kids just not into it. I get it. Right, they want to scroll memes. They want to talk about twisted teeth.

I can shot to the head. They want to watch YouTube videos like my kids. That shit is not being produced in native tongues. It's going to be a real struggle to keep these languages alive. Making things even harder, a lot of native languages were only spoken, never written, and of those that did have a written components. Much of the written texts were destroyed thanks to cultural assimilation programs we'll talk about soon. Now let's talk about colonization, how that affected language preservation and or language destruction. Around the world and throughout human history, the colonization of one culture over another

through military or economic means it's often equated to the degradation or destruction of native languages. Language destruction doesn't always happen, but it often does. Language can be a source of political self-determination and to destroy it is to partially destroy your enemy's identity. And if you can erase their identity, you really no longer have an enemy. You've absorbed them. They become part of you.

This way, it makes sense, strictly from a pragmatic view, for invading forces to stamp out the language of their subjects. The lines of the modern map, the lines of all maps, been drawn by conquerors. When you're conquering, there often isn't a lot of room for sensitivity and thoughtfulness. Conquerors aren't really thinking about language preservation. They're thinking about keeping order, preventing uprisings. And if some languages have to die to make that happen, well, then some languages have to die.

In the case of the colonization of North America, hundreds of years of war between Europeans and natives eventually led to a policy of forced assimilation that did away with much of native history, culture, and language. Also sometimes the sheer number of American Indians, you know, being killed through either disease or combat shrunk their languages to either total extinction or near extinction levels. In the 15th century, when European settlers began to arrive in North America, the continent was richly populated with native communities.

By combining all published estimates from populations through the Americas, several historians agree on a probable total indigenous population of around 60 million in 1492. For comparison, Europe's population at the time 70 to 88 million. So not that much more. Some estimates say there was about 125 million people living in China's Ming Empire at the same time. And the native population would decline to less than 6 million by 1650, a loss of 90% in just over a century and a half. Percentories following 1492, the expansion of settler territory and the eventual growth of the US resulted in North American tribes and native nation communities being moved, renamed, combined, dispersed, and in some cases outright destroyed.

The tribal members who survived military conquest and disease were subsequently subjected to political conquest. A situation sometimes referred to colloquially in native communities as death by red tape. In 1806, the federal office of the superintendent of Indian trade was created specifically to monitor and control economic activity between Indian nations and the US government. After this office disbanded in 1822, in March 1824, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun created the Bureau of Indian Affairs to replace it, officially placing responsibility for working with Indian communities under the control of the U.S. War Department.

This new bureau controlled a lot more than tribal economic activity. In addition to controlling trade, the bureau was responsible for settling disputes between Indians and European Americans, as well as for appropriating funds from Congress to fund efforts by the Indian agents to acculturate American Indians into European American society. And a cultureate, by the way, I can hang up on that word. I don't remember saying it before. A cultureate means to alter through sharing and learning the cultural traits or social patterns of another group.

The first legal justification for the removal and isolation of American Indians occurred as a result of the Indian removal act of 1830. Most Indians living east to the Mississippi were relocated west of the river to what is now Oklahoma. The infamous trail of tears. You need to finally do an episode on it one of these days. As white as the white population grew in the US and people settled further west towards the Mississippi in the late 1800s.

There was increasing pressure on the recently removed groups to give up some of their new land and on Western tribal nations such as the Dakota to enter into more treaties. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 authorized the creation of the first modern American Indian reservations. Then the era of purposefully stamping out American Indian languages kicked off towards the end of the 19th century when reports regarding the poor quality of life on reservations led the federal government to change to a new policy based on forced assimilation instead of concentration and isolation. The Allotment Act, better known as the DAW's Act, passed by Congress in 1887, ended the

general policy of granting land parcels to whole tribes, and instead started granting small parcels of land to individual tribe members. The big shift here. The goal was to pressure Indians into becoming farmers or ranchers in the style of European settlers there by helping to assimilate them, right? And I should make it clear that these assimilation attempts were not always nefarious or ill-intentioned. Many white Americans of days gone by earnestly thought that if they they educated Americans in English and persuaded them or forced them to change and adopt lives more closely resembling their own, tribe members could then thrive in the new nation that had sprung up around them. They'd be happy to give up their so-called more primitive ways of life.

A lot of good intentions with assimilation, truly. And there's that oft quoted saying about good intentions that the road to hell is paid with them. A simulationists initiated four movements designed to ensure their victory in a cultural contest of philosophies and ways of life, allotment, the boarding school system, reorganization and termination. Now, we already dug into allotment or at least explained a little bit, only gonna really dig into the boarding school system

going forward. The boarding school system going forward. The boarding school system is where, you know, native language has probably suffered the most. From the mid 19th century until it's recently the 1960s, native families in both Canada and the US were compelled by law to send their kids to boarding schools, often far from home.

In the US, these so-called Indian schools were sadly often run by people with deep racial biases. One example of this is the Carlisle Indian industrial school so-called Indian schools were sadly often run by people with deep racial biases. One example of this is the Carlisle Indian Industrial School that existed in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It's founder, Richard Pratt. Now, the Richard. Somebody dicks. These sucks.

Described his mission in 1892 as kill the Indian in him and save the man. Damn, no acculturation there. That's straight up whitewashing. No, we want to give you the tools to succeed to the new society that surrounds you in a new way of living that like it or not is here to stay, we'll also maintain pride in your culture. Now this was a less gentle message of,

out with the old and in with the new. It was a real face to future and fuck your past, kind of odd. At the height of the Indian boarding school era between 1877 and 1918, the US allocated adjusted for inflation to point eight billion dollars to support the nation's boarding school infrastructure. An educational system designed primarily to destroy, you know, native culture, native languages, assimilate indigenous people into white European culture. The Cherokee Nation would get especially assimilated. After the

Trail of Tears in the 1930s, the Cherokee Nation reestablished itself as a somewhat sovereign nation and Indian territory or present day Oklahoma. A bilingual public education system was created and Cherokee tribes governed their own schools for quite some time and students learned everything from Latin to algebra in Cherokee. And it was a system that worked then in the 1880s Cherokee students, or I'm sorry, in the 1880s Cherokee students had a higher literacy rate in Cherokee than their white neighbors in Arkansas and Texas. But then starting in 1887, when land belonged into the Cherokee nation and four other tribes in Oklahoma was divided up and given to individuals that process of allotment, the government

began as takeover of tribally run school systems. And these new administrators had very little if any respect for native languages. John D. Benedict, Superintendent of Schools in Indian Territory during the transition, complained in an 1899 letter about educators speaking to their students in native languages. He also complained about female students studying mathematics

instead of learning domestic skills and housekeeping. Different times, under this new fuck your culture and language and bow down to Western patriarchy system that native student, native students, Jesus, native student attendance. Come on, math. Plummeted amongst the Cherokee. And many other tribes and tribal nations. Right, it was working just fine when they were allowed to learn in their own language.

And then when they were not, it started to not work so fine at all. And the Choctaw Nation also in Oklahoma, attendance in rural schools fell by 43% between 1892 and 1907. College attendance dropped to zero. And this English-only system, native children were punished for speaking their own languages. Miles were washed out with soap,

kids were spangued, sometimes whipped with leather strap. Such punishment would continue in parts of rural Oklahoma all the way up until the 70s, the 1970s, not the 18s, outies. In early 1900s, Cherokee children were sent to boarding schools like the Shalako Indian Agricultural School and Indian boarding school on the Oklahoma Kansas State Line. In January of 1884, Shalako opened his doors to 150 kids

in the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Wichita, Comanche, and Ponny tribes. By 1895, enrollment had increased to 352. By 1906, students hailed from a wide variety of tribes across Oklahoma and the West. Large off-reservation schools like this one used rigorous military discipline, stressed instruction and trades in manual and domestic labor, known as quote, actual work. Alumni would report 22 bugle calls a day, government issue uniforms, scanty meals, inadequate healthcare, very little individual attention, probably zero affection.

Uh, during the 19th and early 20th century is an estimated one third of all tribal children living in the US forced to attend Indian boarding schools like this, like Shalako. You can imagine that happened to you. Imagine being told that your culture, including your language, best forgotten. Your family's ways, or not to be remembered that they were less than, they were primitive, you know, you've been sent miles, sometimes hundreds of miles away from your home raised by people who don't give a fuck about you.

Such a shame that all this couldn't have been done with some dignity, respect, and compassion, especially because by this time, Native communities, not a threat whatsoever to the sovereignty of the U.S. government, right? The conquered, we're going to remain, you know, conquered. So, compassion wasn't going to change that. And I say that as someone who is not against assimilation, not all forms, not at all. If a new culture takes over and their way is now by far the most dominant way, uh, and to refuse to assimilate equals economic destruction, then I do think it's a situation of if you can't beat them, join them. But to not allow those joining you to still retain pride

in their old ways, to destroy that cultural pride, to keep their old, you know, uh, to not let them keep their old language while adding yours. It just seems unnecessary. It seems like some sore winter shit. Like I said earlier, how ironic these native languages would later help the US and not just one, but two world wars. Had government led assimilation worked more effectively, there would have been no Navajo code breakers because no one would know how to speak Navajo. Also how remarkable that American Indians were willing to help the war effort at all after all this shit.

Before we dig into the main thrust of today's info, World War II's code talkers, let's first talk, look at the code talkers. I think I said code breakers earlier. I mean, code talkers. Let's first look at the code talkers who helped win World War I. I had no idea they even existed before going over the research for this week's suck. While the tribal children were being sometimes literally whipped for speaking in their native tongue, it schools back home in Oklahoma on the battlefields of France,

the native languages were a much needed answer to a very big problem. In autumn of 1918, US troops were involved in the Muse-Argonne offensive on the Western Front. This is one of the largest frontline commitments of American soldiers in World War I. Over 26,000 Americans will die here. Roughly about 100,000 will be wounded. Communications in the field, we're being compromised. At the beginning of this offensive, fighting will last over six weeks, ending on armistice day, November 11th, 1918, the end of the war.

Well over a million total combatants will take part in this giant battle, the second deadliest battle in American history. The Germans had successfully tapped telephone lines, were deciphering codes and repeatedly capturing runners sent out to deliver messages directly. The Germans, despite losing the war, were still breaking US military codes and slaughtering US soldiers. And is this insanely bloody war wound down a number of US officers appeared to have finally and independently realized that they should use American tribal members to send messages

to their respective units. The earliest documented use of native code talkers, the Eastern ban Cherokee Indians from North Carolina, began during the Somme offensive, which lasted from September 29th to Armistice Day, by October 6th or 7th, a US 105th Infantry Regiment discovered that their battlefront messages sent in English being intercepted by the Germans who were then taking immediate counteractions, including artillery, almost as soon as the messages had been sent, resulted in massive casualties, summoned to a meeting of the signal officers by the division signal officer to discuss ways to counteract this problem.

First Lieutenant John W. Stanley proposed a solution. He knew that the 119th and the 120th Infantry Regiments contained quite a number of Cherokee soldiers, and he heard them talking in their native tongues. He was confident that if he put them on the telephone to transmit messages in their language, no Germans would be able to figure out what the hell they were saying, and he was absolutely right. The next day, every command post from Brigade Forward was stat for the Cherokee soldier, and not a single additional message was intercepted by the Germans. And another tribe that acted as World War One co-tokers were members of the Choctaw Nation. Choctaw, the best documented group of World War One co-tokers.

During the final days of the Muse Argonne Offensive I just mentioned, Colonel Alfred Bloor, commander of the 142nd infantry regiment, used a number of Choctaw speakers to move troops, coordinate attacks, send messches as they moved to northern France. Choctaw language allowed for the quick creation of a double coded code. While some Choctaw terms were equivalent to English counterparts, others did not exist, so they had to work quickly to develop them. Like the word patrol became many scouts. Grenade became known as a stone. Regiment became tribe.

Casualties became scouts. Second time became two grains of corn. Big gun used to indicate artillery. Little gun shoot fast, substituted for machine gun. The name Colonel Alfred Bloor became a big white dick boss man with tiny pink penis. Okay, got to think that's part is not true at all, but how funny would it be if they tried to sneak stuff like that in there just to amuse themselves and they got caught, you know. Are you fucking

serious Corporal Ravenfellor? You refer to me in Choctaw as big white dick boss man with tiny pink penis. Sir, yes, sir. That is the closest Choctaw translation for your name, sir. Are you telling me, Corporal, that Colonel Alfred Blower translates directly into that horse shit? Sir, yes, sir. I did not decide how my language works, sir. I'm merely following your order, sir. Corporal, what is the closest Choctaw translation for Sergeant Major Harrison? How does his name translate? Sergeant Major Harrison sir is strong warrior who fights with the honor sir Well fuck me in the face corporate rifleer. Well, that's that sergein Johnson Staff Sergeant Johnson is noble gladiator with the lion's heart sir, and he fucking said me corporate rifleer

Johnson's goddamn glad here with the lion's heart Sergeant Major Harrison is the honorable warrior and I'm a big dick with a tiny pink penis. Sorry, yes sir. The Choctaw language is as mysterious as it is cruel, sir. Okay, I'm done now. That was fun for me to think up at least. The insertion of code in terms like the real ones, I listed earlier, into the Choctaw language

you created a code within an unknown language. That's the double code, and it was unbreakable for the Germans. Talked out language communicators help set the precedent of using native languages for secure military communications that will become the code talkers of World War II and beyond. Cherokee another tribe that contributed to America's World War I effort. Cherokee historian Emmett star provides a brief reference to the use of Oklahoma Cherokees in World War I. According to Starwall in combat, George Adair was taken from the fire line in France and placed with other full-blood Cherokees in the telephone service where they foiled the German listeners by repeating, receiving and

transmitting military orders in the Cherokee language. Adair's name appears in a list of 68 Cherokees that served and company E 142nd Infantry in the 36th Division in World War I. Several other tribes like the Cheyenne, Osage, Hochunk, aka Winnebago, also been recognized as World War I co-dockers. John H. Longtail and Robert Big Thunder cousins were two of 29 Hochunk who originally enlisted in the 128th Infantry Regiment of the 32nd Division in early 1918. Both men appear on the April 6th, 1918, and Barcation List for Company A 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division, said in from Hoboken, New Jersey. A 1919 issue of the Indian School Journal reprinted from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sentinel,

describes their service. Like so many Indians in the war, These men were used for scouts, snipers, and telephone operators. And during their seven weeks in the front line trenches had many interesting and exciting experiences. Another place where they were in viable was in transmitting telephone messages, where there was a possibility of messages being intercepted by Germans. And these cases, the Indians would transmit the messages in their own tongue. Both these men wounds on June 21st and France and both would recover. They are used for military communications and June, or their use of, you know, use of

their language for military communications in June of 1918, the earliest dated use of American Indian military communicators that we know of. And there were other native World War I code talkers, Command She soldiers, aided in the 357th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division, Lakota, Yankton, Shayan men, used code talkers, you know, Osage served in World War One, some also used as code talkers. None of these soldiers received any official recognition until the late 1980s. When the Chakhtan Command Street began recognizing their own code talkers, all of whom had died by that time following the award of golden silver congressional medals to the Navajo code talkers of World War II in 2000 and 2001.

Other tribes then began recognize their code talkers, including many of the World War I veterans who charted the course for the World War II codebreakers to follow. Use native languages for secure communications in World War I came in two forms. Type I, Native code talking involved the use of native language with additional, especially encoded vocabulary, such as what the Choctaw created near the end of the war. That whole big white dick boss man with a tiny, big penis. Then type II, Native American code talking involved only the use of everyday vernacular native languages And because they were unknown to the Germans this also worked effectively both types

So set a precedent for the development of similar systems in World War two Following World War one in the long build up to lead to World War two the Germans did everything They could not to get fooled in the same way again following the war Nazi authority sent a team of 30 anthropologists to the US to learn native languages. And they were fucking scheming! They were getting ready for that war for years. The sneaky fuckers.

Let's picture these Germans just not doing a very good job trying to sneak in. Well, Hanuk Himlai, I mean, it's Henry Vinkle. And this is my visit psychic Nazi friend. I mean, I mean, a German anthropologist friend Carl, he's a wonderful mind We were taking a break from trying to find the soul tunnels and we were wondering if We could learn all of your native tongues to eat us on our quest to take over the world and we make it in our own image We are hoping to attain the spear of destiny. I mean, we are students how studying shanks Causes it would be nice to maybe break some colds down the

road and I mean to learn things for you just please let us learn their languages. A lot of what I just said only makes sense. If you heard the Nazi search for the Holy Grail Suck from a year ago. Sorry not sorry if you haven't heard that. Anyway Clayton Vogel who helped establish the Navajo Code Talker program wrote about successful German efforts. In a 1942 letter, he said that the Navajo is the only tribe in the United States that has not been infested with German students during the past 20 years. These Germans studying the various tribal dialects under the guise of being art students, anthropologists, etc., have undoubtedly attained a good working knowledge of all tribal dialects except Navajo.

How crazy is that? Only one tribe not infested with German students. Fucking sneaky Nazis! Now I'm picturing something more ridiculous. A picture of a classroom, some small tribes reservation, you know, 10 or 15 young kids, five, six years old, sitting around their teacher, you know, learning their language. And then there's just like this one full-grown, just very pale skin German man. You know, he's makeup to darken a lot of the skin, wearing out-of-date moccasins,

like really like stereotypical cliche, like loincloth, like a headdress, just trying to pretend like he's another kid. Excuse me, sir, what are you doing here? This is a class for first grade Macaustons. Oh yeah, that is why I'm here, that is what I am. I am running with German shepherds. I'm a typical six-shot native child,

viffin unquenchable thirst for my language and my heritage. Dude, you're German and you're at least 30. Get the fuck out of here. The Navajo language, although by far the most commonly spoken native language now, also one of the most notoriously difficult to master, how fortunate for the US that US assimilation efforts to not wipe it out. It'd be so good in World War Two.

And now let's get into World War Two. Enough about World War One. Enough about fighting Europe. Enough about that. Jamens. Let's head to World War Two. The South Pacific. Jump into some Navajo code talking in our timeline.

After a quick sponsor break. Thanks for supporting our sponsors, Meat S sex, and now it is timeline time. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time, some timeline. September 19th, 1931. Japan invades the north eastern Chinese region of Manchuria and immediately establishes a territory called Manchuko. And China, you know, they don't care for this. Chinese government is like, damn it! You fuckers! Oh, we wanted that! Manchuko is a puppet state symbolically governed by the former Chinese emperor Puyi,

really controlled entirely by Japan. While the European theater World War II would kick off in 1939, this marks the beginning of Japan's entrance into global conflict eight years earlier. And the origins of this invasion actually go back to before the turn of the century to the first Sino-Japanese War of 1895, and to understand that war, we have to back up another 40 years. After two centuries of self-suclusion from the rest of the world, Japan had opened itself to trade with the US in 1854

to the convention of kind of Gawa under the threat of force. US President, military film, what? US President Millard, film war. I forget about him constantly. Like, at first I had to look up, I'm like, was that a president?

Millard, film war. Oh, I'll be down. We did have a president by that name. He had sent a fleet of US naval warships to Japan to encourage them, what, unquote, to open themselves up for trade. Bit more manifest destiny here. American sinking it was their duty to force some Western culture into Asia. And of course, you know, make some money.

Japan will not forget this bullying. Their proud nation will harbor some anti-American angst that will take flight literally nearly a century later in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite the intimidation, Japan may have signed a trade agreement with the U.S. anyway, even if they hadn't brought to warships, or at least with someone. They'd heard through dealings with a few Dutch traders, the only Westerners they've been talking to for centuries about how the other Western nations, military technologies were really evolving.

It evolved to far surpass their own. And it was about time for Japan to start catching up if they didn't want to be completely taken over some day soon. Over the following few decades, Japan modernized, and the Japanese sent delegations and students around the world to learn and assimilate Western arts and sciences with the intention of making Japan and equal to the Western powers. These reforms transformed Japan from a feudal society into a modern industrial state

than in 1876 Korea, another long-secluded nation opened itself to trade with Japan and that made China nervous. They didn't like the thought of Japan, a long-time neighbor and rival getting too cozy with the nation that shared a land border with them. So they started interfering in Korean affairs.

And by 1882, they'd essentially turned Korea into a puppet state. So many puppet states. And Japan didn't care for that. And the first Sino-Japanese war was fought largely in Korea between China and Japan over influence in Korea. And Japan shocked the world and won against the heavily favored China. The little island nation that could did. China ended up seeding the Laodong Peninsula, Taiwan,

and the Pung Hulu islands to Japan. They also paid almost 18 million pounds. Literal pounds, 18 million pounds of silver. Japan is so much silver, as war reparations, right? To the victor go the spoils. And this war will lead to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, 1905. After establishing a foothold in mainland Asia,

Japan now feared Russia. They feared Russia wanted to create a sphere of influence in Korea and Manchuria, which is real close to them. Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for Russia, recognizing Korea is belonging to the Japanese sphere of influence. And Russia was like, nah, fuck that.

And then Japan was like, well, fuck you then. Now another war is fucked. Japan will shock the rest of the world again. Japan establishes itself as a new world power by Whip and Zara, Nicholas, the second's ass, humiliating defeat for Russia that will cause the Russian public to turn on the Zara, a defeat that will help enable the Bolshevik revolution just about a little over decade later that will lead to a communist takeover As a direct result of the Russo-Japanese War, Japanese influence replaces Russia's and inner Manchuria

During the war with Russia, Japan had mobilized about a million soldiers to fight in Manchuria Meaning that one in eight families in Japan had a member fighting in the war During the Russo-Japanese War the losses were very heavy with Japan losing half a million During the Russo Japanese War, the losses were very heavy with Japan losing half a million uh, either dead or wounded. Because of all this carnage, many Japanese felt that Manchuria was owed to them. They took this viewpoint that a land where so much Japanese blood had been spilt, now belong to them. And this sentiment will lead to Japan's takeover of Manchuria in 1931.

Now let's back up a bit and then move forward again to get a feel for Japan's World War II ambitions. I really like learning all this because I don't know. When I've watched a lot of like World War II kind of historical documentaries and things in the past, it's obviously, well, I shouldn't say obviously, the ones I've seen tend to have been focused heavily on Nazi Germany and not as much on Japan. So I feel like I've always, you know, for a long time, I'm pretty familiar with why Nazi Germany did what they did, but had very little idea why Japan was doing what they did. Now, now I know, now you'll know. And the Enigma machine suck, we talked about Hitler's plan if he'd won World War II, right? Essentially, he wanted world domination.

Pretty, pretty simple, pretty straightforward. He wanted to turn the world into a labours realm or living space for the Aryan people and to kill those who were not Aryan. So, did Japan also want world domination? Maybe, maybe not. It didn't seem to at least want that in the short term. Initially, they just wanted to dominate Asia. I say just, I mean, Asia's fucking huge,

but they wanted Asia. Japanese Emperor Hito wanted to expand Japan's sphere of influence and territory greatly, which was a sharp departure from previous Japanese history, less than 80 years before 1931. As I mentioned, Japan had been forced out of two and a half centuries of self-imposed occlusion from the rest of the world.

The Tagawa Shogunat was overthrown. The age of the samurai was almost over. Japan embarked on rapid modernization under Emperor Mejie. Victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 the age of the samurai was almost over Japan embarked on rapid modernization under emperor Mejie. Victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and five gave Japan its first real foothold on the Asian continent, forcing China to recognize Korean independence, which really meant Korea under Japanese rule and C. Taiwan and the Ludong Peninsula. And I know I already went over some of these details earlier, but here's what I didn't

go over. France, Germany, and Russia, in a triple intervention, protested the Japanese occupation. The Lodong Peninsula would pose a constant threat to China, and they forced Japan to abandon the peninsula, which deeply humiliated Japan. And like post World War I, Germany would want later, Japan will now want to redress the imposition of unequal treaties placed upon them by Western powers. Three years later, Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese war, you know, shocks the Western world, encourages some Asian nationalists to regard Japan as the

region's natural leader, supplanting China. Then after the formal annexation of Korea in 1910, Japan turned its attention to the South Sea Islands. Japan's presence in the South seas had formally been limited to an assortment of Japanese traders and adventurers, but now it's clear that if Japan moved into the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, abundant natural resources would become available to them. After joining the victorious allies in World War I, Japan was granted Germany's Asian colonial territories under a League of Nations mandate. The territories consisted of shintao and important seaport on the Chinese shantong peninsula and formally German, German held islands in Micronesia. Despite these territorial acquisitions, many Japanese believed they weren't given enough.

They believed that the structure of international peace embodied in the league of nations favored the Western nations that controlled the world's resources. And to be fair, they were totally correct. I did favor Western powers because it was created by Western powers. So now an idea begins to emerge in Japan of an East Asian Federation or Cooperative Body based on traditional Pan-Asian ideals of universal brotherhood and in Asia for Asians liberationist rhetoric.

Advocates of pan-Asianism and Japan believed that they were expanding their empire in order to liberate Asian territories from Western imperialism. And again, they went wrong. Western imperialism had long exploited much if not most of Asia. But also, this wasn't a noble plan. Other Asian nations did not want Japan to liberate them only to then subjugate them. They didn't want Japan ruling them any more than they wanted a western power ruling them. So again, while Imperial Japan didn't seem to want to take over the whole world, they certainly

did want to take over Asia. They did want, you know, the US's resources in the South Pacific. They were willing to fight to get them. The US had various territories in the South Pacific at this time, like the massive islands of the Philippines. The Philippines had been seated to the US by Spain in 1898 following the Spanish American war would remain a US territory until shortly after the end of World War II. The Philippines were over 7,000 miles from the American West Coast, but less than 2,000

miles from southern Japan. You probably understand how the Japanese didn't like the Americans being that close. They didn't like them in Asia at all. They didn't like them in Hawaii, which was originally settled by Asians. Islands annexed by the US in 1898. And at the outbreak of World War II, Japan hoped that Hitler could keep European powers and the US busy while they short up their resources for an Asia-domination plan. Not a bad plan. Reminds me of playing risk, right? This is a great risk strategy

Let the other players fuck around with each other and then you sneakily, you know, just get this whole kind of territory bonus Love risk. I've been playing more lately since Kyler Monroe got into it since it's available in app form now and Kyler Monroe and Lindsey My wife they like to talk a lot of shit when we play risk together and I love it right I'm like Japan when I play in this situation like you know work each other up full cut each other down might surprise you but I stay pretty quiet when I play risk right try not to cause a lot of problems early on trying to talk shit might hope I end up getting forgot about I'd hide in the shadows wait to strike at the rest of the people get mad at each other, irrational attack each other over and over. I, I, I'll like quietly shore up my army.

All right, just let me grab a continent, get some bonuses on the, you know, the download, just gonna attack enough to get that sweet territory card. And I'm gonna fortify each turn, nothing to see here. And then a few turns later. Oh shit! Guess who's been hiding in South America this whole time, motherfuckers. Guess you're spilling up into Mexico now, rolling over into Western Africa to fuck your whole world up. Hail Nimrod, Luciferina, guide my virtual dice rolls, allowing me to utterly destroy my entire family. But no, this is actually similar. The way I play RISC, similar to what Japan was doing here. Smart. Right? Let's let the Nazis, let the allies let them fight over Europe. And then we're going to build up some power and hopefully just take over this whole

area. Okay. So to bring this all back to the code talkers now, the Navajo fighting a formidable ambitious enemy wanted to kick the US out of the South Pacific. And if they had done that, they might have chosen to take their ambitions further, maybe try to create strong holds in North America. They would attack Alaska. They would attack the California coast. This is not a totally unreasonable assumption. Very reasonable to fear imperial Japan, such an incredibly proud and tough warrior culture, scarier in some respects than Nazi Germany. The Nazis obviously know joke, but they didn't come from the same warrior tradition that

the Japanese did. They didn't adhere like the Japanese military did to the Boshido Code. We got into the Boshido Code a bit the samurai suck in September of 2018. Basically meant that soldiers were to be absolutely loyal and trained to fight the death for the emperor. Just to samurai's would fight to the death to protect their feudal lords. I can never say this word. The dime you. Soldiers duty was to endure death rather than to surrender. Surrender was the ultimate shame. It was truly a death before dishonor warriors weigh in Japan. Japanese citizens were indoctrinated from an early age from birth to revere the emperor as a living deity and to see war as an act that could purify the self, the nation, ultimately

the world, fighting bravely and war brought honor to one's family, to one's ancestors. And there might not be another culture on earth that reveres and honors its ancestors more than the Japanese. Literal shrines dedicated to honoring ancestors in many homes. Between 1898 and 1947, the Japanese were legally required to worship their ancestors. At least their male, honorable ancestors. How crazy is that? Right? Worship your father or face illegal consequences

of being a disrespectful fuck. If you were a soldier fighting for Japan and World War II, and you wanted to be worshipped yourself after death, you had to fight hard, yet to possibly die with honor, no surrender, hardcore. Think about fighting somebody, it's coming from that psychological place. Someone fighting to honor their family, their country, their God, someone coming for you

with everything they've got. The Bichito Code accounts for the fanatic Japanese fighting mentality in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Think about those kamikaze pilots. More you dig into pre-World War II Japanese culture, the easier it is to understand why trained fighter-plight pilots were willing to turn themselves into human bombs. Nearly 4,000 young Japanese men would intentionally fly their plans towards allied warships in World War II battles and they would be happy to do so.

Glad to die with honor. This mentality also accounts for the brutal treatment of 150,000 roughly, you know, allied POWs at the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese considered POWs moral failures and cowards, right? They were people who had surrendered. The POWs angered their captors by not demonstrating a sufficient sense of shame for surrendering. They were regarded as contemptible, subhuman. Defeating the Japanese would require an absolute final victory. They were unwilling to surrender, culturally, or to compromise. The Navajo code breaker, code breakers were fighting enemy that would rather literally

kill themselves than admit defeat. On September 1st, 1939, World War II begins in Europe when Germany and Bades pollin. Of course, that's how it starts. Of course, the start of World War II involves Poland. If only my wife's ancestors had been stronger, if only they had been as tough as the Japanese, so much death and despair would have been avoided, right? I mean, I'm not saying World War Two

is my wife's family's fault, not exactly, but yet, no, I kind of is. No, you know what, it's 100%. Sometimes when I look at Lindsey, I just think World War Two, your fault. Your fault! Especially because other than being Polish, she's a little bit German.

So really, if we had to blame World War II on one person, is it Hitler? Or is it my wife Lindsay? I don't know. Something to think about. And of course, New Sucker, I'm Kitty. Or am I? September 27, 1940. The Empire of Japan officially enters World War II by signing the Tripartite pact with

Germany and Italy. I think that's how you say that word. I lift it up a lot of times and it never just doesn't feel right coming out of my mouth. Tripartite, I don't like that word. But anyway, I think it's real. And they signed this treaty just over a year after the start of World War II.

The tripartite pact was actually the culmination of a series of agreements between Germany, Japan, and Italy. Four years prior, 1936, Germany and Italy completed the Rome, Berlin, Axis, a cooperation deal. Go, handshake deal. One dictator to another, from a dictator to a fascist, from a fucking racist to a lunatic. Month later, Japan joined the so-called Axis powers by signing the anti-commentarine pact with the Nazis, which Italy also signed in 1937. And why would Japan make a deal with a fucking maniac who thought everyone

not of Aryan stock was inferior or were inferior subhumans? Because of strategy, baby, because real life risk. Let Hitler and Mussolini fuck around in Europe, give Japan time to conquer and fortify in Asia. Get that big continent bonus, then strike. And I have to think that it had the Nazis and Japanese defeated the Allies in World War 2, at some point following World War 2, they would have for sure in my mind ended up battling each other. In January of 1941, as part of their Let's Take Over the South Pacific Strategy, Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto begins planning an air attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Yamamoto actually didn't want to go to war with the US, at least not at that time. The US was the world's number one naval power. He believed that a drawn out conflict with the US would end badly for Japan, but he felt like his hand was forced to move. He felt like he saw the riding on the wall. American involvement in World War II by the end of 1940 did appear to be inevitable. Eventually, the way the war was heading with Hitler kicking the shit out of Europe, America would be compelled to intervene to keep the Nazis from taking over all of Europe, which would not bode well in the future for the US. And when the US

joined the war since Japan was allied with Germany, America would soon be facing off against the Japanese. So rather than wait, why not get a jump on things and attempt to weaken a powerful foe through a sneak attack instead of trying to wear down American ships as they advanced across the Pacific and then hoping the Japanese could beat them in a big battle, which had been the previous strategy, Yamamoto planned to reduce American forces with a preventative strike, then follow up with a battle fought offensively rather than defensively. The attack on Pearl Harbor, although the US hadn't entered the war prior to the bombing, was very much a, the best defense is a good offense type of tactic.

Yamamoto hoped that if the Americans could be dealt terrific blows early in the war, they might even be willing to negotiate an early end to the conflict and just let Japan have its way in the South Pacific. Thousands and thousands of miles away from its shores. Also leading up to the attack, tension between the US and Japan mounting. In November of 1941, the US cuts off all oil exports with Japan, urges Japan to withdraw from China and Indochina. And Japan, privately, I'm sure, is like, who the fuck do they think they are?

Tell them it's a fucking doing thing. Japan sends some diplomats to Washington in November 1941 to try and find ways to avoid war or at least to appear as though they're trying to avoid war. War, they're not. While those diplomats are meeting with American officials, six Japanese aircraft carriers and other warships are secretly leaving northern Japan heading towards Pearl Harbor. And Hawaii, on a date which will live in infamy, according to a famous speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Japan strikes US Pacific Fleet. On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy strikes Pearl Harbor, damaging eight battleships, three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, one-mind layer, 188 aircraft, and 2,403 Americans die. Knowing that many Americans did not want to fight a war against Japan, the Japanese military thought that if it suddenly destroyed the US fleet, again, America might just give up, right? Allow Japan to consolidate its grasp on East Asia. And just like Russia had underestimated Japan's fighting spirit in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan clearly did not understand the can of whoop ass. They opened when they attacked Pearl Harbor. They had no idea how much

yippup yaw the US had in them. They just woke to fucking bear. The American public is outraged, calls for war. The US declares war against Japan the day after the bombing, and now World War II has another major player. Japanese military rolled the dice with their attack on Pearl Harbor. Well, they initially looked like they hit a seven on the come-out roll. I mean, they did damage or destroy a lot of the US Navy ships in the long run. They crapped out. That seven was really a snake ice. On December 8th, the same day, the US enters World War II, Japan successfully attacks America's

Clark Air Base in the Philippines, North of vanilla. Just right after Pearl Harbor, 16 B 17s, 20 P 40s, most of the bases destroyed. A hundred air court troops are killed two days later Germany and Italy declared war on the US I'm sure the US is like uh what are you doing? We yeah of you know what are you doing declare yeah of course we're a war We just declared war against your fucking ally you dumb bastards just you wait Does you fucking wait the same day only three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor the

British battleships Prince of Wales and repulse are sunk off the coast of Malaya, causing Churchill later to recollect, in all the war I never received a more direct shock. As I turned and twisted in bed, the full horror of the new sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor, who were hastening back to California. Over this vast expanse of waters, Japan was supreme and we everywhere were weak and naked. Eh, early December of 1941, things not looking good for the Allies. By the end of December 1941, Japan's opening military march around Southeast Asia has

gone off fantastically for them. At the years closed, Japanese troops will have invaded Malaya, Thailand, Burma, islands in Indonesia, and the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Hong Kong. Things are looking good for this axis power right now. In early 1942, World War II starts going even better. For Japan and Germany, it starts going worse for the Allies, worse than it was going at the end of 1941. France had fallen in mid 1940, was now really under Nazi control. Britain was staggering from the blitz, which began, which began in September

of 1940, didn't end until May of 1941. Left so much damage. Devastation, German armies have advanced deep into the Soviet Union now. Hitler submarines are wreaking havoc on convoys, leaving the US for Russian ports. The US can't get any sort of strategic advantage over Japan and the Pacific. Japanese cryptographers, many of them educated in the United States and fluent in standard and local English, amazingly adept at breaking American codes. Enemy forces often knew about American battle plans at advance and no defense against Japanese code breaking had materialized. Japanese cryptographers are probably so good with they did, you know, partially at least because they weren't being hindered by having cryptozoologist David Hatcher, children on

their team are buddy from the Enigma code suck. Yeah, David, children's here. I was just wondering what if we focus less emperor on decrypting allied military communications and focus more on harnessing the power of giant jellyfish Globsters and Capagons Capagons in particular may be able to be trained to capsize allied ships and eat American stateers early studies seem to indicate some sort of intelligence. I'm sorry show myself out Commit Harry Carrie Okay, that seems a bit excessive.

Any excuse to bring David back from the enigma suck. Now I'm back. The US, not doing well initially in the South Pacific in early 1942. The US gets a few jabs in in January, early February, but Japan definitely went in the fight. They're taking all kinds of territory, Borneo, some of the Solomon Islands, Singapore, and more. They even attack an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California with a submarine, the bombardment of Elwood. Not much damage is caused. No one dies, but it scares the shit out of the Americans. Japanese have just bombed

the California coast. The Japanese also sink America's first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley in early 1942. They sink America's largest warship, the USS Langley in early 1942. They sink America's largest warship in the Far East, the USS Houston of the 1061 aboard only 368 survived, including 24 of the 74 man marine detachment. And then they're captured by the Japanese and in turn in prison camps of 368 Navy and Marine Corps personnel taken prisoner, 77 will later die in captivity. US military now desperately looking for some kind of advantage in their fight against Japan.

On February 19th, 1942, Philip Johnston, a civil engineer in Los Angeles, finds that advantage. He gets an amazing idea to build a code based on America's most popular, but still very confusing comic book series Poodie and Juju. The idea hits him while reading special issue, number 36, the Emperor's New Juju. In this timeless classic, Juju sneaks off to Tokyo in the cargo hold of the Korean freighter, ends up sneaking into the Imperial Palace posing as the Emperor's new assistant and saying

lost classic lines like Bouchida B buchado, tomato, tomato. I don't know if the emperor wants me to die with honor or making me sandwich. And emperor here or he too, more like nacho cheese Dorito. Okay, maybe that last one wasn't like a classic line, but it actually doesn't make a lot of sense on so many levels, but Johnson thinks,

what if more gibberish can be snuck into fake issues? Place carefully in between lines, like put it in your lunchbox Shirley Two little two diddle poody right they could sneak in messages to allied commanders in the South Pacific The Japanese would never even you know pick up just as a sneaky little mess just like a hey poody What if instead of flipping my lid and cheese my grill you send the USS boxer and eight other SX class aircraft carriers and the USS Carlson and 20 or so other average class destroyer escorts and all mess of other ships up towards new Britain and sneaked attack the Japanese early on May 4th say O600 hours while they still expect to bulk of the fighting to continue

on and around the Florida island just off the coast Guadalcan now and then you know we can just go to the five and dive and buy some lollipops. I mean how could that message possibly ever be intercepted? Old joke, their new listener. Been way too long since we've heard from, oh, Putin, Juju. Philip Johnson, that civil engineer, he really did have a good idea. One I mentioned at the very start of the show, a real idea. The idea to use the Navajo language for a code.

Johnson was the white son of a Christian missionary who had grown up on a Navajo reservation, learn Navajo in his youth, also a World War I veteran. And he proposed using Navajo specifically as a code for the Marines. He knew it would be very hard to break a code based in Navajo because the Navajo language didn't have an alphabet. Has a very complex sentence structure has these very complex tonal qualities to it. And the Navajo were ready to fight shortly after Pearl Harbor independent of the U.S. government, Navajo Nation had declared war on Japan and Germany. Early 1942, Johnston met with major general Clayton B. Vogel, commanding general of amphibious

corp, core Pacific fleet, and his staff to convince him of the Navajo languages value as a code. Johnston staged tests under simulated combat conditions, demonstrating that Navajo languages value as a code. Johnson staged tests under simulated combat conditions, demonstrating that Navajo's code encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in just 20 seconds. A machine's at the time required a half an hour to perform the same job. The Navajo could code and decode, you know,

these three lines and literally 90 times faster than machines. Blown away by this, Vogel recommended to the common don of the Marine Corps that the Marines should recruit 200 Navajo. Johnson had explained to him that almost no one outside of the nation knew the language because it was so difficult to learn. It was estimated that when World War II started, only 30 non-Navajo's were fluent in the

Navajo language. And none of them were Japanese or German. The Marine Command will consider this offer. On April 9, 1942, the US loses again to the Japanese and the South Pacific, the Battle of Patan and the Philippines, begun back on January 1, US and local forces didn't have enough rice and ammunition available to them to mount a proper defense when the Japanese came and attacked. They were pinned in the mountains by the Japanese and started out on only half rations. An allied force of 22,000 American troops and roughly 120,000 Filipino reservists are quickly reduced to trying to live off of

monkey meat literally. They hold out for 99 days as more and more men come down with malaria, dengue fever, other diseases as they start to starve. A lot of dudes, McGill popping off the buttholes. On April 9th, the Allies surrendered 76,000 troops to the Japanese led by General Ned King. This is the largest army surrender, you know, or largest army under American command ever to surrender. The siege of baton was the first major land battle for the Americans of World War II. It would end as one of the most devastating military defeats in American history.

Japanese military leaders had severely underestimated the number of prisoners that they were likely to capture and were therefore unprepared logistically and materially for tens of thousands taken into captivity. And because of that Boshido code, the Japanese hated these POWs, saw them as weak, cowardly, and shameful. Japanese ended up forcing the prisoners to walk from the tip of the baton peninsula to POW camps about 65 miles inland, facing disease, starvation, and frequent beatings along the way.

As many as 11,000 troops will die on what quickly becomes known as the baton death march. Those who dropped from exhaustion or sickness fell behind, broke ranks to fetch water who tried to escape or bayoneted, shot or beheaded. Men who could not rise next morning to continue were often buried alive or beaten to death with shovels. Shovels care held by ditch diggers, which are other prisoners forced to carve out graves along the waves, fucking hell on earth. War still really not going well for the US. Losing this battle in major morale below. On April 18th, 1942, the US Army Air Force strikes back. They conduct a massive air strike on Tokyo and other strategic locations in the Japanese home islands.

The strike notice to do a little raid doesn't do much tangible damage to Japan, but it's huge psychologically. Major victory for the US puts a lot of fear into Japanese citizens that they can be attacked on mainland Japan, that they're vulnerable. This is big for America. If the enemy can be reached, they can be defeated, big for the allies, from May 3 to May 8 an attempt to Japanese invasion of New Guinea is temporarily thwarted by the US and Australian navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

The battle was fought almost entirely with aircraft, launched from aircraft carriers, making it the first conflict in which neither side ships directly fire on one another. Another small victory for the Allies, but quickly followed by a major victory for Japan. Three days later, on May 6, all US forces in the Philippines surrender unconditionally to Japan. Japan now completely controls the Philippines. Large parts of Indonesia, Burma, and New Guinea. And suddenly, now the US government is ready to act on using the Navajo code, docker's. On May 19th, US Marines head to the Navajo reservation, talk to Chi Dodge, the former and last head chief of the Navajo tribe, and

the current chairman of the Navajo tribal council. 29 Navajos will join this project. Some were so excited to participate that they lied about their age to get in, while others did not want to participate, but didn't really have a choice. So many more than these, 29 would help the war effort. Selective service reports, 1942, say that 99% of all American Indians

who were eligible for the draft, healthy males between the ages of 21 and 44 had registered for the draft. Roughly 25% of all American Indian men were in the military during World War II. A highest of any group of people during the war, highest percentage. The 29 future code-dockers quickly traveled to boot camp at Camp Pendleton in your ocean side, California. And then a code-dockers program was set up at Camp Elliott and San Diego to further train

them. And while they train, fighting of course continues. From June 4th to June 7th, 1942, U.S. aircraft stopped a Japanese invasion of Midway, a U.S. base that guards Hawaii. During a four-day, sea and air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeds in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers, while losing one of its own, the Yorktown, and a destroyer, the USS Haman or Hamin. Japan suffered 2,500 casualties, lost 292 aircraft, while the US lost 145 aircraft and suffered

307 casualties. Simultaneously and practically the same dates, June 3rd to June 7th, Japanese forces attack Alaska's Aleutian Islands, bombing Dutch Harbor on the island of Unalaska and invading the islands of a two and Kiska. For this, it had been over 120 years since a foreign nation had actually invaded American soil, taking these two small islands populated by small bands of Aleutian people, another big blow to American morale. It wouldn't be until May of 1943 that the US will fight to retake this land. The alludes taken prisoner by the Japanese,

19 will die in captivity. On June 18, 1942, the US, Canada, and the UK embark on the development of nuclear weapons in a top secret program called the Manhattan Project. More than a billion dollars, 130,000 people and 30 research and production facilities are utilized. Check out SUCC 164 for more info on the Manhattan Project. And another project of similar importance will also begin

in the summer of 1942. The Navajo Code Talkers start writing their codes. From July to September 1942, Navajo Code Talkers in platoon 382 undergo boot camp. Let's meet one of them. Chester Ness and a memoir of his World War II experiences, Code Talker, the only book actually written by an actual Code Talker about all this. He discusses the thought processes that many Navajo men were going through as they fought

for their country. Chester writes, I could have stayed in high school, explaining how he didn't have to fight in the war when he did. He continues, maybe I should have, but as a warrior, how could I ignore the fact that my country had been attacked?

I volunteered for the Marines just seven months before in April 1942, only a few months after the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Until joining up, I had never left Navajo land, except for a few hours in route to boarding school. My wiry frame barely met the Marines, minimum weight requirement of 122 pounds, but I knew I was strong. Camp Elliott near San Diego was our home for the next 13 weeks.

Riding out there on the bus, we had speculated about our critical mission. A marine officer strode with a no-nonsense gate to a classroom building and we followed. He opened the locked door, marched to the front of the room as we piled in behind him, standing tall, his uniform spotless, his expression unsmiling, he waited for us to sit. And he spoke. I felt a small knot tightened in my stomach. The officer wasted no time. He looked around the room at each of us, the 29 carefully selected marine recruits and

told us we were to use our native language to devise an unbreakable code. I read expressions of shock on every face, a code based on the Navajo language after we'd been so severely punished in boarding school for speaking it, for starters, you'll need a word for each letter of the alphabet. The officer told us, the officer locked the doors he left, telling us we'd be released at the end of the day

to get dinner, someone would bring lunch to the room. Other than that, we were on our own forbidden to speak to anyone outside that room about our task. And if we needed to go anywhere, we had to go in pairs, way to practice the buddy system at all times. Anyone caught alone will be punished.

After some discussion, we began to see the wisdom in our assignment. Navajo was a very complex language, and since it was not written, the Japanese could learn it only from a Navajo, or from one of the rare non-Nvajos who had lived on the reservation and learned to speak the language. To be honest, I don't think they could have learned the language even then. It was just too complicated. Still apprehension set in. How could we, 28 of whom had never worked with the military, develop a code robust enough to be used in battle?

One that could be responsible for sending life for death messages. The task loomed ahead like a black unmapped cavern, where to begin. We stared at the locked door of the room in which we sat. Then a man who introduced himself to us as Corporal Ravenfether walked in. He said he'd once served a World War I. Advises to be really careful when we chose how to translate the names of our superiors. He was Choctaw. And he said that some names translate into much more flatter

and word combinations than others. He said he was nearly court-martialed. For coding, General John J. Pershing's name has Pee Wee Fuckface McGee. Corporate Raven Feather said that the assistant chief of staff Walter C. Short was even more upset. His Choctaw codename became short torso, chubby long legs, tweedle dumb sits on his thumb.

One eye higher than the other, arms too hairy, feet too flat. Hope the Kaiser kills him and his whole family too. The Corporal Raven Feather told us this, the Marine Officer, we've met earlier, came back in the room and yelled, hey, what the fuck are you doing here, Corporal Raven Feather? You were discharged 20 years ago. Okay, so maybe the Corporal Raven Feather stuff never happened. No Chester Nes, never wrote that. But he did write, we stared at the locked door of the room which we sat one of our men Jean Crawford had been in the reserves. He had worked with codes before

and he offered to share his knowledge with all of us. Certain things that were important. The code words chosen must be clear when spoken on the radio. Each word must be distinct from other words chosen in order to avoid confusion. The officer who locked the room was correct. A good way to begin was to select a word to represent each letter of the alphabet. Jean Crawford and two other men from among the 29, John Bennally and John Manolito played a strong part in setting the direction for our group as we developed a new code. On that first day, we decided to use an English word, generally an animal, a plant or an object that was part of our everyday world, to represent each letter of the English alphabet.

Those words will be then translated into Navajo, and the Navajo word would represent an English letter. As Jean had suggested, we chose Navajo words that could be easily distinguished on the radio. Words differing clearly and sound from other selected words. A became red ant, not the English word for ant, but the Navajo word pronounced Wala-Chi. B became bear, pronounced shush, and Navajo. C was cat or moasai. D was deer or beh. Thus a double encryption was used.

Each letter became an English word beginning with that letter, and the English word was translated into a Navajo word. We tried to make the letter equivalence easy to remember, and we discussed pronunciation. Since emphasis on the wrong syllable, a slight change in tone or a glotal stop could totally change a word's meaning in the complicated Navajo language. Any difference in dialects between us men had to be resolved and won into one firm code. In the heat of battle, we could afford no ambiguity. Navajo bears little resemblance to English.

When a Navajo asks whether you speak his language, he uses these words, do you hear Navajo? Words must be heard before they can be spoken. Many of the sounds in Navajo are impossible for the unpractice ear to distinguish the inability of most people to hear Navajo when it's a solid plus when it came to devising our code. So let's push pause now and Nez's fantastic narration. Look more at the differences between Navajo and English. Such a perfect language for military code. Sounds like a real hard language to learn to speak if you don't learn it from birth. So complex, even more complex than Chester just described. For example, while there is one verb for a single person doing something, there are other

verbs for two people and another for more than two people. There are several ways to say to pick up depending on what the object is. Pronunciation as Chester alluded also so complex. Navajo is a tonal language with four tones, high, low, rising, and falling. The tone used can completely change the meaning of a word. The words for medicine and mouth are pronounced, for example, the exact same way. They are only differentiated by tone. My God. Good thing I don't have to deliver these deliver these podcasts in Navajo. Why too much for me. Literally no one would ever know what the fuck I was talking about. English can be spoken pretty

loosely. Still be understood. Thank God Navajo cannot be. Okay, back to the Navajo code talkers. Now working on developing their unbreakable code. According to Nez, none of the code, doggers argued all they developed as code. As part of Navajo tradition to work together in a harmonious way, that concept might be even more confusing to me than the language. Working together without arguing,

how the fuck is that even possible? I'd be kicked out of their nation so quick. Each member of the group studied the new code until it was completely memorized. It would quiz each other until it became second nature. They assigned Navajo words to represent frequently used military terms that did not exist in the Navajo language. Some examples like Beschlow, aka Ironfish meant submarine, Dahe Tihih, aka Hummingbird meant

fighting fighter plane, Debe El Zin. I have no idea if I'm going to get these call it right here, a K, a black street meant squad. They knew that the Navajo code word will be spoken over the radio, but never written when utilized in battle. So they had to be so precise in the heat of battle. None of them could afford to pause second guests themselves. They started their new code, tell their exhausted, studied it some more. Once they were finished, American code experts tried for a week to crack this code, never came close.

Over time, this code would evolve to include 400 other words and concepts or 400, yeah, and totally would have around 700 words enough to make the necessary communications required of it. And now it's time to see if that code would be unbreakable to the Japanese. On August 7, 1942, the first Marines were up to 11,000 men land in Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific east of Papua New Guinea, over 100,000 people currently live in there, about 15,000 in 1942. In the initial Marine landing, there are no code-tokers.

The code-tokers will show up at Guadalcanal in November. In that first landing, the Marines are met with little resistance as the 2200 Japanese occupants mainly construction workers building an airfield, not soldiers. They only arrived in the island two months earlier to construct the airbase. And within two hours of US fighting, Japan responds with an air strike. The US fleet caught off guard. The Japanese sinks two of five allied cruisers that sat off Guadalcanals North Shore. The cruisers role was to protect transport ships, which supplied the Marines on the island.

They held crews of upward to a thousand and dependent on their class varied over a range of sizes. And the loss of just one cruiser was devastating. And now the US loses two and two more allied cruisers badly damaged. So badly that they were abandoned. And the fifth cruiser, USS Chicago sustained significant sufficient damage to put it out of action. So all five cru damage to put it out of action. So all five cruisers have been knocked out of action.

Two American destroyers, small scouting ships designed to destroy torpedo boats, also badly damaged. Such heavy losses, the US have to withdraw from their current important supply mission. And the 11,000 Marines left to fortify their positions themselves, build an airstrip. Japanese then proceed to fight hard to retake Guadalcanal from these Marines. They would hope to use the island as the staging area for a land invasion of Australia. They also wanted to use this staging area to harass and disrupt vital shipping lanes between the US and Australia. Control this island. This island that no one really gave a fuck about before the war. Now super important. Or the end of the third

week of August, approximately a thousand Japanese troops show up fighting under Colonel Kiyono Echiki, eager to kill for their beloved emperor. These men expect an easy victory and then they meet a lot more troops and they were thinking they were going to meet and are defeated by Major General Alexander Vandegriff's fifth or first Marine Division. In mid September, Japanese Major General Kawa lands with 6,000 more Japanese troops. They too defeated by the American forces at the Battle of Bloody Ridge, just south of Henderson Field on September 13th.

By mid-October, the Japanese will have delivered 20,000 soldiers to the island, including a full division of the Japanese 17th Army led by Lieutenant General H. Hitaki, uh, and they still cannot take back their air base. So they send even more men. And late September of 1942, the Kodakers 13 weeks at Camp Elliott come to an end. They're each promoted to private first class and will be part of all six marine divisions plus the marine radar battalions and marine parachute units. Their weapons will be radios and telephones. These men now secret weapons are sent to different islands in the Pacific to take part in the battle against the Japanese. By this time,

the Japanese have already taken Guam, the Philippines, and Burma on the Malay Peninsula. They've also prevailed in the battle of the Java Sea and have attacked New Guinea. The US needs a big victory. Many victories badly. On November 4, 1942, Chester Nez, that guy we met, and 12 of his fellow code warriors head to Guadalcanal. The battle we were just talking about, not even the other Marines on the ship knew of the secret communications mission they were on. But several of the admirals had been informed of the code.

They were heading right into one of the most chaotic landscapes of the war. And to many Navajo who had grown up in landlocked states in the West and on reservations entering this battle was mind blowing. Ches, our Chester Nez, later writes, I'd never even seen the ocean before enlisting. It was good being able to sail without feeling squeamish. I tried to concentrate on that and not on where I was heading,

but thoughts seeped into my brain like seawater. I reminded myself that my Navajo people had always been warriors, protectors. And that there was honor. I would concentrate on being a warrior and I'm protecting my homeland. With an hours, weather, and harmony with this world or not, I knew I would join my fellow Marines in the fight. Cutting through endless ocean towards my first battle, the codes proving ground, my

12 buddies and I studied and re-study the entire vocabulary of 200 plus words. All of us were fluent yet we all continued to practice. We could afford no doubts, no hesitation. Accuracy and speed were a matter of life and death. We practiced transmitting messages among ourselves and to code talkers on other ships. The new language became solid and unshakable, embedded in our minds as firmly as childhood memories. We transmitted deciphered and responded to messius

almost without hesitation. We were ready. We hoped. The white man's military had accepted us as tough Marines. Hardened by the rigors of life on the reservation or the checkerboard area, we often outperformed our white peers. And basic training Marine Sarge's bragged about the prowess

of platoon 382, the Navajo recruits. And our code was part of a bold plan to take the South Pacific Islands back from the dominant Japanese. I promised myself I would be brave, but the air vibrated with apprehension. A chaplain addressed us, reciting a blessing. I held the small Buckskin medicine bag my father had sent and said my own silent prayer. Give me courage. Let me make my country proud.

Please protect me. Let me live to walk in beauty. Around me, the other Navajo seem to be doing the same each hoping to walk in beauty again in their native homes in Arizona, New Mexico. Then a high ranking officer spoke. I hate to say this. He said, but I guess we all know that some of you will not return from this battle. Some of you will never see your families again, clear this throat, hesitating. Then his voice took on strength and determination. Always remember you are defending both your country and your families.

The Japanese attacked your land, your home, and now you will make your country proud. Man, that is some intense shit. Imagine being 18, 19 years old, experience this, right? Out on the ocean for the first time, sailing off the US, you know, where war has not occurred anywhere near you in your lifetime or long before it. You've never witnessed any sort of military fighting.

Odds are you've never witnessed, you know, anyone pointing a gun, somebody in a threatening manner, definitely not you. Now you're about to land on some little island across the world. You're landing there with one purpose and one purpose only to fight the Japanese to the death. People you've never met, you know, try and kill their soldiers

before they kill you, they're gonna try and bomb you, shoot you, stab you, they get close. Right now, one of their submarines can be trying to sink the ship you're traveling in. As you approach the beach, you hear gun, mortar fire. Maybe you hear or see planes flying overhead, maybe you smell smoke.

You know, once you're ordered to leave that ship, you know, you're gonna be running straight into hell. I wonder, I wonder how alive those young men must have felt in moments like this. Like how much adrenaline spiking around in their systems. Do you hear your heart loudly, quickly, quickly beating in your ears? You taste blood in the back of your throat, moments like that. The high ranking officer also told Chester and the other men with him, it's okay to be scared.

It will be foolish not to be scared. and you may not have anything but fools. Just remember your training. Nez and the other code talkers wondered if they would die. It was the most terrifying day of their lives, the Guadalcanal invasion. In Nez's words, we approached the northern shore of Guadalcanal. Gray tones of daylight revealed black smoke drifting thick over the island. I offered silent thanks to the Navy's pilots who had bombed the enemy, hoping to drive them away from the shoreline where we marines planned our landing.

We drew closer in the battleships in our flotilla let loose. The roar of huge weapons made our ears ring, shells, sixteen inches in diameter plowed into the beach. As we drew closer the black smoke brought in on a heavy, slow wind, settled on my skin, and the sharp smell of explosives stung my nose. I saw Helmet float in the water. I tried not to look too closely. Now wanting to see whether it was American or Japanese.

My buddy Roy and I watched the first wave of men laden with gear, climbed down heavy nets to their landing craft. It must have been around 830 in the morning by then, but everything was gray with rain and smoke. We can do that," said Roy quietly, nothing to it. Oh, I said in Navajo, biting the word off, like the English word, Oat. Yes. Of course, we'd practice landing. The climb down the rope nets, the rifle, the grenades are packed jam-full with the necessities of war. But this time enemy fire tore into the water and ricocheted off the ship.

Men cried out wild, startled, shout, our legs trembled and our hands shook. Nothing was the same. We co-talkers did not disembark in that dangerous first assault wave. Apparently, Marine Command deemed our mission too critical. As we looked on, the landing boats filled, forming a circle offshore and waiting until all the craft and the first wave were manned. Then the shelling from our ships moved up from the beach to the hills and the boats hit the island all at once. When we neared the beach and marine, unlatched the ramp

that formed the bow of the boat, the hinged ramp opened and we rushed down into chest deep water, holding our rifles above our heads in the continuing rain. Japanese artillery shells exploded around us. Noise roared, continuous like the clamor of an enraged crowd. Sharp punctuations, individual explosions added to the din. Bodies of Japanese and American soldiers floated everywhere. I smelled death as bullets sliced into the water.

Blood stained the tide, washing onto the beach. Man! It's just so insane. War, I will never pretend to have any idea what it truly feels like. I've never fought. I imagine words just can't do with justice. I imagine you can just never really know until you know. Chester continues, a Marine floated nearby.

His sightless blue eyes staring up at a foreign sky. I had spoken with him only moments before entering the landing craft. He'd been in San Diego at boot camp when I was there, but in a different platoon. I didn't even know his name. My body went cold, my throat tightened up, and I struggled for breath. My eyes burned with unshed tears. After that, I did my best not to look at the faces of the dead. Navajo belief forbids contact with the dead, but we waited through floating bodies, intent on not becoming one of them. Close your mind, I told myself, I tried not to think about all those dead men.

They're chindy, violently released from this life. I'm a marine. Marines move forward. I tried to make myself numb. And before I move forward with Chester's powerful words here, let me quickly define chindy. A Navajo religious belief, a chindy is the ghost left behind after a person dies, believed to leave the body with the deceased's last breath. It's everything that was bad about the person, the residue that man has been unable to bring into universal harmony. So it's to be avoided. Traditional Navajo practice is to allow death to occur to occur outdoors, to allow the chindy to disperse.

If a person dies in a house or Hogan, the building is believed to be inhabited by the chindy and it's abandoned. So kind of a ghost. Chester continues. We push bodies and parts of bodies aside. Some looking more like raw beef than the limbs of human beings. Fought our way forward, finally fell gasping on the beach. Onshore, we attempted to find our assigned unit. Japanese fighter planes, zeroes, flew overhead in a formation

that echoed the V formations of Canadian geese. The zero no longer dominated allied fighter planes as it had in the first months of the war, with those bright red discs, sun symbols. On the undersides of its wings set a chill down my spine. I knew those enemy planes carried machine guns, cannons and bombs. Once Chester and other co-talkers found their unit, they got right to work with their coats in the middle of all this chaos. Nes narrates again, some of the code talkers joked around a lot, probably to relieve the constant tension, but Roy and I were temperamentally well suited to each other. The gravity of our code work kept us both pretty solemn, although we appreciated a good laugh

when it was provided by one of the other men. Roy was superb with the code. He and I, we never once let each other down. We tested our radio equipment with me, cranking and Roy speaking into the microphone. Roy nodded. Good. Our TBS radio is unique. A wireless system that generated its own electricity via the cranking motion.

That is fucking badass. That's amazing. Again, our only wires were the ones connecting the headsets and microphone to the crank box. Other modes of communication used on the islands, both radio and telephone, depended upon the wiring, both radio and telephone, depended upon the wiring, which was strung by marine communications men. RTBX could pick up radio stations, the news, but we weren't allowed to switch to that.

We had to keep communications open for coded messages. But when we turned on our radio, it was already set to a channel, playing a new episode of Archie Andrews. And so we decided to listen. Hello? Hello, Jughead. This is Archie.

Come over right away. It's a matter of life or death. Oh, relax, Archie. Relax. And then Chester writes, Archie was our favorite show. And I told Roy, let's just listen to this one episode. I was a big Betty fan, and I knew Roy like Veronica, and we wanted to try and figure out which girl Archie was gonna go steady with. Yes, and you relax too, folks, if you can, because here he is again, right out of the pages of Archie Comics magazine, with all his gang, Archie and Rose!

We yelled, yeah, hey, Archie Andrews! Archie, we love you! Oh yeah, this is the best show! And then Chester wrote, while it was a turned out that broadcast was only the beginning of an Archie Andrews 24-hour marathon, we listened to the entire thing. Archie never committed to Betty or Veronica, and Jughead's jokes just really didn't land for us. It was pretty unsatisfying.

Also, we ended up losing the battle, because we forgot to relay any messages from command to the frontlines, and a lot of people were angry with us. It was pretty unsatisfying. Also, we ended up losing the battle. We forgot to relay any messages from command to the frontlines and a lot of people were angry with us. JK, of course, JK, but they're really close to Archie Andrews. Archie Andrews radio program in the 40s. Imagine if that was like one of like four entertainment options you had. That was what you just heard. People complained about, oh, there's nothing on TV now. There's a lot more. A lot more than there used to be. Good old Riverdale high. They're still making arti shows, by the way. No part of me understands how that show is survived.

Anyway, here's what Nez really said next. That first night, Roy and I crouched in our foxhole, side by side, but facing opposite directions. So my knee was pushed against Roy's shoulder and vice versa. The water crept nearly chest high. Heavy drops fell like bullets, causing the water in the foxhole to splash. We two desert boys had heard tales of rain like this.

Remember in boarding school, the white man's Bible, I said, all this rain, Roy chuckled, yeah, no in the flood. Oh, Noah, I hesitated. I volunteered to board his arc right now, although we're supposed to take turns on our foxhole, sleeping and keeping lookout, and neither of us slept. Gunshots sounded an intermittent burst, tearing through the dark soggy night. Blue-white artillery tracers streaked across our field of vision. Enemy artillery shells. Our own shells had red tracers.

I couldn't yet distinguish between the sounds of Japanese and American gunfire, but the colors were immediately evident. And then the two of them recited in Navajo prayer. In beauty, I walk with beauty before me, I walkajo prayer, and beauty I walk with beauty before me, I walk with beauty behind me, I walk with beauty around me, I walk with beauty above me, I walk with beauty below me, I walk. The thought that kept Nez going was that he wanted to stay alive so we could tell his father about how the Navajo language helped the troops. And the Navajo language did help the troops. Nez and the other codeokers were extremely successful, this big first test. The Japanese did not break the Navajo code and the Americans were victorious in taking

Guadalcanal and defending it. Navajo code-tokers would go on to participate in every subsequent assault. The US Marines conducted for the rest of their war in the South Pacific. Chester Nes himself would fight in four different locations. And then he was honorably discharged as a private first class in 1945, and would return to serve state-side in the Korean War, in which he was discharged as a corporal. November 12, 1942, the U.S. Navy gains a major strategic victory on Guadalcanal, pushing

back to Japanese invasion force in the Solomon Islands. It's the first battle in the U.S. Island hopping, or leapfrogging campaign, The plan is to jump from island to island pushing Japan out of the Pacific. And the Guadalcanal campaign, also known as Operation Watchtower, over 60,000 US ground forces will fight over 36,000 Japanese ground forces. My God, over 7,000 US Marines will die over 19,000 Japanese will die. The US would lose 29 ships, including 14 destroyers, and they lose over 600 aircraft. The Japanese would lose almost 700 aircraft and 38 ships. It's so much carnage.

More wins for the Americans in the Pacific theater follow, even with the Navajo codes, though, they often come at a massive cost. On November 20, 1943, more than 1500 Americans are killed and fewer than four days of fighting in the brutal battle of Torawa and Mike Rineshan at all. Despite the losses, US troops defeated Japanese and their conscripted Korean laborers. Torawa was one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Navajo has worked around the clock in that battle to send messages and receive them. On June 6, 1944, Navajo code talkers making appearance on the other side of the world across the Atlantic. They're on

the ground during D-Day when more than 100, when more than 160,000 allied troops land along a 50 mile stretch of heavily fortified French coastline to fight Nazi soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France. The coast of the Normandy campaign was so, or the cost, excuse me, of the Normandy campaign was so high on both sides. From D day through August 21st, the allies landed more than two million men in northern France, suffered more than 226,000 casualties with over 72,000 killed or missing and over 153,000 wounded. German losses include over 240,000 casualties and 200,000 captured massive numbers death on an almost incomprehensible scale

July 18th 1944 amid mounting losses Japanese Prime Minister Hadekitojo was forced to resign things are starting to really turn around for the allies Really going in a good direction now the allied island hopping campaign has been very successful by August 10th really going in a good direction now. The island, island hopping campaign has been very successful. By August 10th, the Mariana's islands are now under US control and the Japanese have been forced out of most of Southeast Asia. And a massive part of all the success comes from the constant work of the Navajo code dockers on October 17th. Another success for the allies, American general Douglas MacArthur hoping to enact some payback for that for that baton death march, begins liberation of the Philippines from Japanese control. From February 4th to February 11th, 1945, British

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet in Yalta and the Soviet Union. The Allied leaders agreed a post war, treatment of Germany, division of territory in central and Eastern Europe, Soviet participation in the war in the Pacific, and representation in the nascent United Nations. So the Nazis and the Japanese still fighting, but they are now whether they fully realize it or not clearly going to lose this war. The Alta agreement paves the way for the Soviet Union to enter the war in the Pacific against Japan. Japan's surrender will lead to their return of territory and period of Russia lost during that 1904, 1905 Russo, Japanese war we talked about a while ago. From February 19th to March 26, 1945, American Marines fight for control of the island of Iwojima. The battle is one of the bloodiest in Marine Corps history killing near the 7000 US Marines and more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers

in 36 days of fighting. Army photographer Joe Rosenthal's image of the troops raising that flag over the island becomes one of the most iconic images of the war really becomes one of the most iconic images in American history. And the Navajo code talkers were there. Navajo code talkers aided Marines in their assault on Iwo Jima by decoding over 800 messages. All of them accurately none of them intercepted. Major Howard Conner fifth marine division signal officer credited the co-talkers for doing a lot to assist the Marines in taking Iwo Jima.

He felt that they would not have taken Iwo Jima without them. He had a half dozen of these specially trained Navajo Marines with him at all times. On April 12th, 1945, Harry S. Truman is sworn in as 33rd president of the U.S. following the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Just a couple weeks later on April 30th, Adolf Hitler kills himself and his bunker effectively bringing the European war to a close. How many cheered when they heard that Adolf Hitler had killed himself? Maybe the most celebration

ever over suicide, possibly, if not probably. On June 15th, Navajo Code Talkers Dictionary is established by recruits of Camp Pendleton. A month later on July 17th, the new UK Prime Minister, Clement Atley, the US President Harry Truman, and the Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, meet in Potsdam, Germany. The Potsdam Conference addresses the partition of Vietnam, the relocation of Germans from Eastern Europe and postwar European borders. Pottsdam Conference also results in the Pottsdam Declaration, and agreement between the UK, the US and China. And the Pottsdam Declaration calls for the immediate, unconditional surrender of Japan and Japan

refuses. Death before dishonor that Bushido code, no surrender. On August 5th, the US 20th Air Force flies over 12 Japanese cities, dropped 720,000 pamphlets, warning their populations to surrender, or face immediate devastation, and sadly Japan still refuses to surrender. And then the next day, August 6th, the US Army Air Force bomber Anola Gay drops the atomic bomb Little Boy on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bombing is intended to avoid a full-scale allied invasion of Japan, an invasion in which

some historians speculate casualties would have run into the millions. All in all, counting initial deaths and those who would die from radiation and other reasons later, 192,020 die from this bomb. Over 170,000 of them civilians, civilians eighty thousand of them died instantly. So tragic, I discussed the ethics of this bombing at length in the Manhattan Project Suck back in November of 2019. And I discussed the ethics of this next bombing. On August 9th, three days after little boy is dropped, the US drops the atomic bomb fat

man on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Although fat man is a more city of Nagasaki. Although fat man is a more powerful bomb than little boy, the explosion results in fewer casualties because of Nagasaki's geography limiting the impact of the blast. More than 70,000 total people died. Almost all of them civilians. The bomb drops on Hiroshima, Nagasaki remain the only nuclear weapons ever used in warfare. Thank God. And the aftermath on August 15, the empire of Japan finally agrees to an unconditional surrender to allied forces, knowing that their country will be completely fucking obliterated

if they do not. This day is known now as victory over Japan day or VJ day, not as popular as BJ day, but more popular than HJ day. Sorry. New York, it was reported that on VJ day, but more popular than HJ Day. Sorry. In New York, it was reported that on BJ Day, celebrants threw anything and kissed anybody. The crowds gathered outside the White House president Truman said, this is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor. By the war's end, roughly 540 Navajos served as Marines.

From 375 to 420 of those trained as code-alkers, the rest served in other capacities. From September 1945 to April 1952, the US military will occupy Japan, reducing the political power of the emperor and establishing a parliamentary democracy and independent civil society. On December 31, 1946, President Truman declares, although a state of war still exists, it is at this time possible to declare, and I find it to be in the public interest to declare that hostilities have terminated. Now, therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the secession of hostilities of World War II effective 12 o'clock noon, December 31, 1946.

With the incredible success of the Navajo code in the Pacific theater, deployment of the Navajo code talkers continued through the Korean War and after until it was ended in the Vietnam War early on. Replace by some technology I'll talk about later. The code those original 29 men developed never broken. Another important date now. February 12, never broken. Another important date now. February 12th, 1952. Michael Motherfucking McDonald, born in Ferguson,

suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Years later, in both solo work and during his time with the Dubie Brothers, he will craft a number of undisputed timeless hits like I keep forgetting every time you're near and what a fool believes. He will also release the greatest commercial jingle ever crafted of all time voted by everyone

in a 1991 Diet Coke commercial. What's that cool? Oh, man, what is it? Tell me. I don't know. What is it? What is it? What is it?

What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? Huh? What is it? No refreshment. What is it though? I was the What is it? That's the taste of. Huh? What is the taste of? The refreshment.

The refreshment. What is it though? That's the real die. The real die. Oh, god. That's the taste of. The refreshment. Just for the taste of. Die.

Die. I hate Dice Auto, but that's silky dream voice. It just made me so thirsty. Good luck getting that out of your head. What's the day of stuff? Run it, man, run it, man, run it, man, run it, no, no, no, no. I'll start in 2021, right? With a random contributing nothing to the story of McDonald's. Back now to end our timeline.

A 1958 military declassified Zanabahoe Code under the Department of Defense Directive, 5200.9. The code has never once had never once been cracked. The code talkers also not allowed to discuss what they had done. They receive no recognition for their massive contributions to allied victory. Now begins the long road to get into code talkers that recognition they deserve. Ronald Reagan declares August 14th to be national code talkers day on that same day in 1982 many years after the war decades after on September 19th 1992, the Pentagon honors Navajo code talkers with the dedication of a Pentagon exhibit established in their

honor. And then on April 2nd 2000, Senator Jeff Binghamen of New Mexico introduces legislation authorizing the president of the United States to award congressional gold medals to the original 29 Navajo code tockers and silver medals to all the other men subsequently classified as code tockers under Marine Corps military occupation specialty 642. The bill becomes law on December 21, 2000 and is awarded by President Bill Clinton. July 26, 2001, President George W. Bush awards the four surviving Navajo co-tokers with medals at a ceremony in Washington, DC.

So cool, but also a bummer that the other 25 original co-tokers, you know, never lived long enough to make it to that ceremony. On June 14, 2002, the movie Wind Talkers, a fictional story based on the achievements of the Navajo co-tokers, premieres. It's directed and produced by John Wu, stars Navajo co-talkers, premieres. It's directed and produced by John Wu, stars a pre-ghost writer, Nicholas Cage, plus Adam Beach, Peter Stormair, Noah Emmerich, Mark Ruffalo, and Christian Slater. And because it's Nick Cage, here's Nick Cage talking about how he prepared for this film.

This clip is taken from him and some other cast members being interviewed by Bobby Wyghant for an NBC affiliate in Dallas. This is absurd. Sometimes when I act, I don't really know what happens. I try to see myself as like a channeler now, which is how I whatever spirit wants to enter my body and do the work for me basically. Yeah. And you can gather those things together, you can get a little dog hair or rabbit for putting in your food or something and then give it as a gift to the spirits and they come in and they do the work for you. I love how fucking crazy he is. Sincerely, dog hair? What are you talking about?

Two of his co-stars are sitting next to him in this interview and they look both so confused when he's saying this and also like they're just used to hearing him say shit like this. The Code Talkers recognition act of 2008 signed into law by President George W. Bush, November 15th, 2008. The act recognized every Native American Code Talker who served in the U.S. military during World War I or World War II with the exception of the already awarded Navajo with Congressional Gold Medal. The act designed to be distinct for each tribe with silver duplicates awarded to the individual code talkers or their next of kin.

As of 2013, 30 tribes have now been identified and been honored. And then on June 4th, 2014, our last date this timeline, Chester Nez passes away from kidney failure at the age of 93. Last surviving member of the original 29 Navajo code talkers and that takes us out of today's time suck timeline Good job soldier. You've made it back barely All right, let's recap, meat sacks, 29 original Navajo co-tokers trained in World War 2. By the end of the war, there were around 400, 29 initial, initially, and then around

400 by the end. These brave men kept the Japanese from decrypting vital information. They allowed US forces to communicate in battle, deploy troops, notify various factions of changes in strategy, etc. without fear of the Japanese, continuing to intercept their transmissions as they had done before. The Japanese, a formidable enemy, formidable, operate on the Bouchido Code, where suicide was preferable to give an in, the Americans and their allied counterparts needed every advantage they could get in fighting them along with Hitler's Nazis and the Navajo Code Talkers were a huge advantage. Code talkers were integral to the success of so many individual battles and campaigns

that were on Utah beach during D day. Some have credited them with giving the Marines the edge they needed to take Iwo Jima. The Navajo served admirably and courageously despite fighting for a nation that still subjected them as World War II was being fought to a variety of racist and unconscionable policies. The boarding school system that hoped to eradicate their culture and language still continued operating, in some parts of the nation as the co-dockers fought in World War II ridiculous. They fought for a nation that had only just granted them full citizenship, two decades earlier in 1924 with the Snyder Act.

American Indians right to vote would not be fully secured nationwide. This is insane to me until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This act also known as the Indian Citizenship Act declared all non-Indian citizens, or declared all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, B, and they are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States. And that not passed into almost a full decade after native code talkers and other native soldiers, you know, well actually two decades after World War II, it's crazy.

The contribution to the United States military success in both wars was immense and I'm glad I could help spread some awareness About their incredible achievements today way overdue way overdue Now let's look at what they did again one more time in today's top five takeaways Number one the Navajo language was chosen when US Marines needed an unbreakable code because it is incredibly complex spoken by very few people and Only existed as an oral language Number two in the code wars the secret military codes developed by 29 Navajo speakers beat out the Nazi enigma machine as

The only unbreakable code of the war Number three other American tribal languages were developed into codes during World War one and native codes continued to be used by the US military as late as the early phases of the Vietnam War, and then nester encryption devices replaced the code dockers. The end computers taking them human jobs. Been happening for a while now. A nester stands for Network of Expertise and Long Term Storage of Digital Resources. These systems were developed by the National Security Administration, the NSA. Number four, despite the U.S. government's efforts to eradicate native languages through boarding schools that punish students for speaking in their mother tongues, it will be these languages that would help the U.S. government and the allied forces achieve two World War War two World War victories, how ironic.

And number five, new info. One forgotten group from the code wars we did not mention here today are the Tlingit people, these American soldiers and code talkers, Northwestern coastal people, the people of the tides, and they used their native Tlingit tongue as a code against Japanese forces in World War 2 as well. Their actions remained unknown long after info about the Navajo code talkers was declassified. Their actions remained unknown long after info about the Navajo code talkers was declassified the memory of five deceased Tlingit code talkers was finally honored by the Alaska State legislature Lesson two years ago in March of 2019 and a lot of people in Alaska were surprised to know Tlingit code talkers ever existed They had been ordered long ago not to talk about what they did and they took their orders very seriously all five men took their secrets to the grave not even their immediate families knew about it.

One man George Lewis junior was so quiet about the role he played in World War II his own son Ray Lewis born shortly after the war didn't even know his father served in the war didn't know he served in the military at all he said his dad literally never talked about it. Ray said that there are no military records in the family to even indicate what branch the elder Lewis served in. He was so proud of his father. And of course, when he found out and only wished he could have spoken about it with him,

while he still lived. He said upon learning of his father's contributions, I'm very proud of it. My father was instrumental in saving a lot of lives out there. Time, suck. Tough, right. Take away. and saving a lot of lives out there. The Navajo co-talkers has been sucked. Starting off 2021, recognizes some heroes, many of whom are not properly recognized while they still lived or were never recognized at all.

Thank you, Spacers, for picking another damn fine topic. Hail, Nimrod to you all. And thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help and making time suck. Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, Scripps Keeper, Zach Flannery, Sophie, Fax, Source for his Evans, Biddelixer, Logan Art Wartlock, Art Warlock, what is going on today with me?

Especially Keith running BadMagicMurts.com, working on our socials along with Liz Hernandez. Thanks all those who have joined the Cult of the Curious Facebook group, our private group with roughly 25,000 members who turned a podcast into one hell of an online community. Yippee-yipp, ya, you curious motherfuckers. Thanks again to Liz Hernandez and her all-seeing eyes running the Cult of the Curious Facebook page. Thanks to Beefst steak and the mod squad of Jesse Becky and Cody run a wild on Discord. I don't even know how many people are on there right now. And thanks to all of you, Spaces, there's playing Time Suck trivia on the Time Suck app.

Next week on Time Suck, we head back to Africa. This time to South Africa before it was country. When it was home to many small tribes of people with their own customs, traditions, and languages, tribes who fought each other for access to natural resources and land, when many of these tribes were united under a powerful military leader. That's what we're going to be talking about. Shaka Zulu. You probably heard that name, but have you heard the story?

Any idea who this dude actually was? Shaka had an unusual start to life. He was given a name that was tantamount to an insult. Shaka meant to kind of beetle. It was used in reference to his mom's pregnancy. His dad insisted she wasn't pregnant. Her swollen stomach, merely the symptom of being bitten by a beetle.

It's gonna get weird next week. Shaka endured all kinds of shit as a kid on his way to becoming one of the most powerful men South Africa had ever seen. A fearsome warrior, a brilliant military mind, a master of psychological warfare. He'd come to unite a Zulu nation of over 25,000 people, group of people to still hold this cultural identity today,

a group that still share his legend and excited to share his legend with you next week on Time Suck. And now let's head on over to a real media, a real robust group of Time Sucker Updates. Let's start off with, oh this is such a good one. I'm going to call it. I'm going to say you're going to really like to start off with a message about love. It is about love.

Also, BDSM and Craigslist, maybe about Spokane area, Dwayne. He gets referenced at least. I love this message so much. Fun love and sexy sucker, Emily writes, greetings master sucker. He who sucks the most. Triple M's minstrel and Lucifin is plaything. I've thought about writing in a handful of different times

that I've always held off. I never felt that my personal experience is related to the content enough to make for a meaningful email. However, with the subject matter of the sucks and secret sucks over the last few weeks, the time has come. Boy, howdy, how the time has come.

To make a long email short, I met my husband on Craigslist. I don't mean that I bought a couch from a guy and thought he was cute and we started dating either. I mean that I was perusing the list one evening and responded to an ad in the personal section by a guy 10 years my senior who was looking for a sub who wanted to be bound and played with by a dumb. Our first date was me getting tied up in my future husband's basement.

Oh my god. From there, this weirdo introduced me to the world of BDSM, rope work, submission, and fet life. Ring of bell. We have a steamer trunk full of toys, ropes, and leather, and a hook screwed into the beam of our basement for, in the incubus voice, please. Suspension and slave training. I made it into a couple Portland area dungeons and a slave house, and it's safe to say that

neither of us could run now for public office. One internet search by the local news would ruin my relationship with my parents for good. So maybe you can see why I've been laughing so hard the past few weeks. Minus the rapey murdery bits, you've basically been succ-splaining our lives to the entire cult. Crazy where you can find love, isn't it? I never expected the man of my dreams would have come from a creepy little corner of the internet, but here we are going strong five years later.

And while on many a hike on an isolated trail, I've said to him, this is when you kill me, isn't it? He hasn't revealed himself to be an ax murderer yet. Even so, I'm sending my current coordinates encrypted in the body of this message. In the event you don't hear from me again, it's safe to say he's finally done it. JK, gosh dang. Any of you, thanks for all you've done to keep us laughing these past two years. We've been listening.

We've survived a deployment, this pandemic, and some generally shitty days with the help of this podcast and your humor. It's very nice. And if you happen to read this aloud, please give a shout out to my real life, live in Incubus, Matt, between his almost two decades of military service and his current career as a paramedic, he has never done a job that wasn't in the service of others. And he is still the kindest, most selfless man I've ever met. Oh, that is awesome. I'm so glad I responded to that ad.

I'm wishing everyone in the bad magic family all the best in the new year, your loyal sub-sucker, Emily, PS, to answer a few of the questions you've been asking regarding BDSM. Colors make for simple safehorts. Yellow can be used when you want to keep playing, but at a lesser intensity, red would be a full stop.

Hand signals were great if you're gagged. Dungeons are cleaner than you think. No, I've never met or responded to Spokane area dwind. Emily, I love this message. What a unique and wonderful story. Really could have gone another way if Matt had been a psycho when you walked into that basement. But I guess that's true for the start of any relationship, really, isn't it?

I mean, you know, the guy you find on Christian Mingle who meets you at a coffee shop on your first date and talks a lot about his virginity could also eventually kill you. Not sure if that's reassuring or the exact opposite of reassuring. Anyway, Matt Whiskerhorn, thanks for being a great man of service of veteran and probably a sexy pony taper, tamer. Go give your sass for the ride. Hi, O'Emily away. I have no doubt you two will keep on sucking.

Lucicina loves you, so do I. Keep it weird and fun and sexy. Enjoy that life. If things ever get stale, maybe give a spoken area dwein a ring. He'll spice things up for sure if you're just willing to give him a ride. Now let's keep it light. For one more message at least, shamed sucker Harrison got Cummins Law. He rides, hey Dan, you finally got me. I've been listening to suck about a year now. Always thought that the Cummins Law seemed so impossible, that it'll never happen to me. Well, it did and man, do I feel bad for the windshield repair woman.

I was sitting in my living room working from home while my windshield chip got fixed when I hear a knock on my door. It's the repair woman sheepishly asking me to disconnect my phone from my truck when she has running to my driveway. I immediately realized last week's Craigslist killer episode is playing. I went to play it and rewind five minutes to see what she had heard. And it was your explanation of his BDSM double life complete with incubus voices. Needless to say, I'm sure this was not the house call she was expecting. Great podcast is always wouldn't change a thing. Three out of five

stars. Loyal sucker Harrison. Harrison called the windshield woman back, asked her if she is worthy of sexual ascension. Tell her that she has your slave that you own that pussy, that's through progressively more intense bridal and flogging training. You'll make her quiver like a dry fall leaf and a light breeze. A dry leaf about to get so wet. Nice. Uh, seriously though. Uh, thanks for sharing your embarrassment. Here's the, uh, I love picture and mentally how all of that went down. I love that she had to come ask you to turn it off. Clearly she was not a fan. Now a message of condolence from Thoughtfulsack, Billy P. Billy writes, Dearest Suck Master. I've been listening to Suck since way back to the Maryland and

Rose Suck and this is the first time riding in. Though I did email Lindsay about an episode of Scare to Death. I just finished your Victor Frankl end of the year wrap up Suck and it really moved me. I'm sorry for the loss of your grandpa. Much like you, I had a wonderful grandfather who was really more of a father to me. He was an amazing family man who raised 10 children, Catholic in the 50s, as well as my sister and me. He passed away about 10 years ago and like you, I am thankful every day to have had such a tremendous role model who demonstrated perfectly Dr. Frankl's point of finding them meaning in your life.

He never had an extremely high-paying job or all the luxuries in the world, but it was clear that he was happy with his life because of his family. From listening to you over the years, it seems like your grandpa ward was exactly the same. Absolutely. I had a severe allergy issue when you spoke about your grandpa

and writing this email seems to be flaring it back up. I hope you were able to tour again next year. Come back to Buffalo. Soil last time you're here and totally botched the handshake was way too excited about your upcoming World War I sock. Keep up the great work and thank you for all the good you put into the world. Your once in future spaces are Billy P. Well, thank you, Billy. Yes, my my allergies have been out of control of the I think about my grandpa then they just

started to kick up. What a man would have meet sack The world could use more grampals like yours and mine Billy. I guess we will have to do our best to to fill those shoes Thanks for reaching out. Thanks for telling a bit about your own grandfather. Sounds like he was cut from the same cloth as pop award So many messages have come in From so many of you about how much you loved Victor Frankl's positive outlook on finding meaning in your life from last week and so many messages offering kind words about pop awards passing. Here is another one of those messages from Alex Campbell who writes, Hey Dan, first off,

I wanted to reach out to you, say how sorry I'm about to lost your grandpa. It's fucking hard losing someone so close and important to you. I lost my paternal grandpa grandma a a couple years ago and I still break down every now and then when I think of her. I still have a voice mail on my phone that is only a minute and a half long, but it helps me to hear her voice on rough days. As, man, it's sweet. My maternal grandpa has been battling dementia for about four years now, and I just learned on Christmas Eve that he isn't expected to live past New Year's. This has been really hard on me because I'm getting married in June.

It was super important to me to have him there as I marry the love of my life. Because of this completely fucked horse shit of a year and this heartless piece of shit virus known as COVID, I have not been allowed to go see him since earlier this year before COVID hit. Once I heard you talking about your grandpa's passing and hearing you choke up, I absolutely lost it at work. I broke down. Bolly my fucking eyes out.

End up having to leave work early because I just couldn't continue. Now for the comments law, my fucking boss walked by as I have a river forming on my goddamn face and just stood there looking at me on the welder and we have that total toxic masculinity stereotype you'd expect from welding shop. So now I'm going to get some shit this next week for crying like a little baby. Anyways Dan, thank you for always keeping a positive attitude and everything you do. You're an amazing meat sack. Can't wait to meet you in person.

Not even going to apologize for the long message or even acknowledge it. Am I sorry, you're not. Probably fucking not. You may be crying at work. You piece of shit. Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and I hope 2021 is way better than this fucking train wreck. We've all been living in this past year.

Well, thank you, Alex. Sorry for the shit show at work. Man, my grandpa is not a man to wear his emotions on his sleeve. And when I get choked up at his passing, sometimes I then start laughing because I think about him looking at me, thinking about him, and shaking his head and disgust. Literally have no memory of ever seeing the man cry.

Old school man, shit. My sister's time cry kind of, one time. So a little bit of moisture in his eyes at her wedding. So did my female cousin, his other granddaughter, but around me, I think you would rather have, well, we were just saying now, but rather have died than for me to see him cry. I guess he thought I was assigned a weakness.

More of that toxic masculinity, I guess. Sorry about your situation with COVID and your grandpa. And yeah, I hope it all has the happiest ending. It can't have. Yeah, but truly sorry about that, man, condolences. And tell the other welders at the shop that you were only upset, you only got emotional, because you just found out that a couple dudes,

you almost beat to death outside of bar other night, we're left out of the hospital and you were hoping that they were dead. And then, you know what, fucking then see how much they tease you, I don't know. But seriously, thanks Alex, hope 2021 is kind to you. Next up, Victor Frankl's message of meaning hits Super Sucker and fine future father,

Kelt and so hard. I love this message. Kelt and writes, dear master sucker, just finished listening to the Victor Frankl 2020 episode and was so inspired. I love everything y'all do a bad magic. Me and my wife watch STD as we are in bed and I constantly re-list into time suckin' is we dumb

when I'm not driving to make my deliveries. Just wanted to share about my 2020 and the question of life's meaning. I'm 26 years old, have been a fan of your stand-ups in high school, which got me here. I worked in the restaurant industry for 10 years before taking this new job at a uniform delivery company, when my wife told me she was pregnant. After years of trying and multiple miscarriages, this was such a blessing. She is doing any day, I can't wait to meet my little meat sack. Like I said, I left the industry to have a job with 401k, benefits, stable hours, etc.

The problem is I do not really enjoy it. Don't give me wrong, it's a great job for a great company. And I get to listen to a podcast for 10 hours a day, but cooking was my life. I still cook every day at home for my wife and friends, but I gave up my dream to take this career so my child will never have to want for anything like I had to growing up super poor with a single mom. But then listening to the 2020 episode made me think being a dad is my meaning.

I knew I never wanted to be anything in life more than being a dad. That's what I've always wanted to be. That's my purpose to raise a strong, smart, independent, little girl named Madeline Rose by the way. So I have put my dreams on a hold to be able to give her a home, be able to pay her college and full and get to spend all the time I can with her, and then that's what I'm going to do. Sorry for the long message, but bad magic really gets me through the day, which I was tech savvy enough to work for you. Thanks so much for, uh, thank you so much for everything. Means more to me than you can know. Keep on suckin' motherfucker.

You're very loyal. Don Creeper Meat Sack. Also, my wife and I both agree. You're a lucky man to have the lovely crystal, love and queen as your wife. Keltin'. Keltin', I'm so glad, thank you for that message. So glad you found that meaning.

What a wonderful dad you're gonna be. Good on you. So many different places to find meaning in life. Work is but one of many options. Numerous options. What a great name. Madeline Rose. I love it. Men Rose middle name is actually Rose. Like you said, you can still cook, right? Home for friends and family. So keep cooking. Maybe they'll stay home. Maybe someday you won't, you know. Doesn't matter where it goes as long as you're happy, as long as you have that meaning. Wish you and your wife a very smooth delivery.

Now let me share some more happy news, some news of new life. Again, new mother sucker, Trina Carter, writes, a subject of good end to 2020. Hello, master sucker. I've written in previously a pregnancy complication we have been dealing with this subtastic 2020. To recap, my baby was diagnosed with an unbiblical

aneurysm at 26 weeks. This is an extremely rare and most often fatal anomaly and only 15 cases have ever been reported in the US with very few baby surviving only five to date. At 28 weeks, I was hospitalized for close for close monitoring and an unexpected and unexpected early delivery. After six weeks in the hospital and my baby defined all odds stacked against her. I'm proud to say our baby girl Blake was delivered safely into the world this week on 12 21 2020. That is awesome. Now that the imbiblical court is gone, the aneurysm is no longer a threat and she is safe and healthy. She was born six weeks early, so we have a bit of an NICU stay ahead of us, but no lasting long term effects will impact her. This has

been our Christmas miracle, and we wanted to share our good news with the time suck community. We think the world of you and Lindsay, we are just an honor of your generosity, display this year with your charity, our hope is next year to contribute to the cause as well. My husband and I, both spaces, and our little space, Newt is beautiful and loved already. I've attached a photo, hail Nimrod, keep on sucking. You amazing motherfuckers with love, Trina and Aaron Carter. Trina and Aaron can grasp.

Thanks for sharing your life with the rest of us. And for the kind words. And hello, little Blake, tough asshole fighter. Got some bow jangles in you. Thanks for the pick of Blake, too. She is gorgeous. And another great name. Lindsey loves the name Blake Blake, too. She is gorgeous. And another great name. Lindsey loves the name Blake, for girl.

Enjoy all your days with her. Even the ones when she's gonna be a brat. Even the ones when you know, you and Aaron can be a brat. Smile as much as you can, soak up the ride. And now let me transition to one last grandfather message. Let's honor the passing of another fine man. This one really hit me in the fields. I might have to grab some flownates.

Get preemptive with your allergies right now. Solid sack, Jordan James writes, Hello Lord of the Suck, Bear of many ridiculous nicknames. I am writing you today to share on your grief and to tell you about a great man. I was listening to the Suck today in the inspiring life of Victor Frankl. When you talked about the recent loss of your grandfather,

I'm very sorry for your loss. Your remembrance of your grandfather hit me particularly hard, but I just lost my grandfather as well late on Christmas Eve. 2020 has truly been a mother fucker of a year. I'd like to tell you about him if you have the time. I do. We do. My real grandfather died in the year 2000. After a long battle with cancer three days after my ninth birthday, it is definitely the loss I felt most keenly in my life. My papi was a great man. We were very close.

Bobby Bird with my grandfather's best friend. And shortly after my papi died, he moved in with my grandmother to help her. He treated my whole family like his own and we did the same for him. He was there for us in a tough time in our lives. I got to spend almost 20 years of my life with him, double what I got with my papi, and I was grateful for every minute of it. He taught me a lot about how to fix and build things and how to be a man. In 2019, he was diagnosed

with bladder cancer. The doctors gave him about a year, unfortunately, a very accurate prognosis. I didn't see him as often as I wished this year. With the pandemic and my wife working a retail job, I was terrified of exposing either him or my grandmother. We have always had Christmas Eve and my grandfathers or grandmothers every year. This year was no different. He was there and though he looked awful, he was having trouble breathing and walking, he would not let us take him to the hospital. I think he knew. I think he was just holding out for one last Christmas with us. My grandmother and cousin found him not breathing a little before midnight with a quiet smile on his face.

He chose his time and place. He was a man of small stature, but a giant in my life, and I will never forget him. I love you, Bobby Bird. Thank you for being a part of my life. If this was a real letter, it would be covered in splotches. I couldn't stop crying as I wrote this. Sorry for the length, any errors I wrote this on my phone. My condolences again in the last year grandfather.

I truly know how you feel. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. And hail Nimrod, sincerely space lizard Jordan James. Man, Jordan, thank you for sharing such a wonderful story for us with us. And yeah, and for the condolences, condolences to you. What a great man. Step right in there.

Step right in from the on deck circle up to the plate when you're when you're grandpa, when you're papy past to help your grandmother. That is fucking beautiful. Hail Bobby Bird. Hail the fuck out of Bobby Bird and and hail the fuck out of Pop award. And hail all of you beautiful bastards who make all of this so special every week. Thank you for yeah for all the messages again and I hope we're gonna have a super fun year here in 2021. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Thanks again for listening to the first suck of the new year, uh, more bad magic productions, content coming soon. And Spooks with scared to death laid on Tuesday nights. We got silliness

with Is We Dumb Wednesdays at noon, all time specific time. Don't try to force anyone to abandon their culture and or language this week, please. Whatever language they choose, even if it's super difficult, Navajo. You know, maybe just let them, I don't know, keep on stuck or something. Hey Joe just come in I wait here this new song I've really been digging it what you think What's that cool girl down? That chill version? Be rude. What's that? Is it fletchy? Is it? Is it?

That's the taste of... Re-refreshment. That's the taste of... Re-refreshment. Re-refreshment. Re-refreshment. Re-refreshment. Re-refreshment. Yeah! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river!

We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river!

We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river!

We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river! We're in the river!