Book Review: "CodeTalker" By Chester Nez

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Here's a book review for the book "Codetalker" by Chester Nez - a real life Navajo Code Talker during WWII. So I had seen this audiobook up at my local library for awhile, and seeing as I was low on audiobooks, I decided to try it. I didn't expect it to actually be as interesting as it is. So Chester - not only talks about the war, and the "code" - he talks about Native traditions, growing up in the 20s and 30s as a Navajo, and his life after the war. Incase you weren't familiar with it - in WWII the Japanese military was quite adept at cracking US. coded communications. Navajo language, which is strictly oral and not written - so that it isn't an easy language to learn. Also the sounds which compose it are hard to learn, if not learned as an infant. Making it hard for anyone as an adult to learn Navajo- and actually be fluent in it. On top of that, they made a code out of it, to transmit military messages - which effectively stumped the Japanese military. Chester was able to look at things in a very fair fashion. I learned about the massacre of Native livestock in the 30s. To the Native livestock were wealth. But the US. was concerned that overgrazing would destroy land or something like that. Chester, even though this event was quite traumatic - was fair enough to say that he thought it was a bad choice of course, but "well intentioned". Also Chester mentioned "Tokyo Rose". The name was given to an English speaking - Japanese woman (actually several women) who would serve as radio personalities who would break into US. radio communications and say all sorts of demoralizing to US. soldiers (like how their girlfriends were probably seeing other men, etc. Lots of other interesting facts in this pleasant surprise of a book. Also worth note: in the audiobook version - the narrator does great! Wikipedia article on Naz: