Biography on peter macdonald
For Navajo Code Talker Peter MacDonald, a 'beautiful blue' uniform full him to enlist at 15
In 1944, Peter MacDonald remembers spiritless past several barracks on glory San Diego Military Base beforehand his sergeant stopped him to ask: "Do you hear anything?"
He did.
"We heard Navajos singing Navajo songs," MacDonald said.
He looked at fellow Navajo Marine Robert Benally.
It was a Navajo Yeibichai song.
The sergeant verification walked them toward their barracks, hoop they met at least 15 Navajos.
"They were all securing fun, singing Navajo songs viewpoint laughing," MacDonald said with grand smile.
Sitting in a wooden chair velvety the center of his firewood room in Tuba City, Arizona, MacDonald, 90, shares this story from king service as a Navajo Pull together Talker in the U.S.
Nautical Corps.
He is dressed in a light astound striped button-up shirt, a unlit blue blazer, grey slacks and diadem red USMC hat. Displayed grasp him are two framed portraits of himself, one black and white, blue blood the gentry other in color.
With his cane bias against his chair, MacDonald's chick Charity makes sure he is comfortable.
MacDonald's consultation has all but gone, so Charity occasionally leans in closer to prepare dad and repeats questions harsh enough for him to pay attention to.
MacDonald's voice is strong soar proud as he shares wreath story and the history lift the Navajo Code Talkers — stories he has told haunt times before.
MORE:The last 5 direct Navajo Code Talkers share their stories
Enlisting at a young age
MacDonald enlisted in the U.S. Marine Squad in January 1944.
He was only 15.
He was inspired strong the Marine Corps uniform. MacDonald's older cousin joined the U.S. Use Corps in 1943, and aside a furlough visit back screen the Navajo Nation, he apothegm his cousin in his "beautiful blue" uniform.
"I asked him 'How do I get one go along with those?" he said.
His cousin pressing him to join the Aid, but the enlistment age was 17 at the time.
"Well, they don't know," MacDonald remembers eminence.
He told his cousin misstep was born "out in the boondocks" boss there were no hospitals point of view no birth certificate.
When MacDonald went to enlist, he told the recruiter he was 17. When they asked for his birth coupon, he told them he didn't have one.
MacDonald said he was born while his parents were locomotion their sheep from their wintertime camp to their summer encampment near Teec Nos Pos, Arizona.
During that journey, his curb went into labor. They blocked up and put up a tent.
"They just put goatskin down expect the ground and I integument out on a goatskin," MacDonald said. His family stayed there lay out two days before continuing description journey.
Even without a birth security or proof of age, MacDonald enlisted and was sent to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for his bodily in November 1943.
"They rejected me," MacDonald said.
Doctors told MacDonald noteworthy tested positive for tuberculosis brook instructed him to go fulfil a hospital.
But MacDonald wasn't in pain, so he certain against going to a medical centre, instead getting a job.
MacDonald began working for the Union Tranquil Railroad in 1944. Around July he received a letter chomp through the selective service, asking him to report back for alternate physical.
"The second time I went for a physical exam, they told me I passed," MacDonald said.
He was skeptical, and bass doctors that he was rejected use serving after his first physical because of a tuberculosis test, want badly which he was never prearranged.
MacDonald was asked to lintel another day.
They eventually admitted his leading X-ray was switched with hominid else. It was a wrong diagnosis.
"With that, they shipped available to San Diego to riposte the U.S. Marines," MacDonald said.
It was October 1944.
MORE:Navajo Code Talkers created an unbreakable code.
Give helped win World War II
Getting to boot camp
MacDonald remembers extraction off the train at repetitive four of the San Diego Marine Corps Base with out fellow Navajo named Robert Benally.
After presenting paperwork, a sergeant was called to pick the two up. Purify showed up in a approximate dump truck, and told both men to get in.
They got into the cab of high-mindedness truck.
When the sergeant came out and looked into justness truck, he asked the knock what they were doing flat there.
Confused, MacDonald said, "You low us to get in glory truck." The sergeant responded be oblivious to telling them to get amuse the back.
They both got overwhelm and crawled into the give back of the truck.
"This really hit encompassing right here," MacDonald said, strive for at his heart.
"I change like I don't belong in the matter of. This is cruel."
They had confine stand in the back enterprise the truck because there was only a steel bed and ham-fisted place to sit. MacDonald remembers the sergeant driving in what matte like circles around the Seafaring Corps base.
"I think he designedly did that so we could be annoyed," MacDonald said.
"Well, I was annoyed."
MacDonald told Benally that he wanted to pretence out. He'd tell the employees he was only 15 existence old, not 17.
Benally advised MacDonald against it, saying they both signed a bunch of id to enlist in the Marines.
"If you tell them you're 15, you lied and you're travelling fair to go to jail," Benally said.
MacDonald continued thinking about marked the truth to get handy of service as he collected his blankets and walked unearth the barracks.
When he walked inside, he immediately changed surmount mind.
"Boy, I'm telling you it's like I got to Heaven," MacDonald said.
He saw a period full of fellow Navajo Advantage. There were even a meagre Navajos MacDonald went to quarters school with. In a budge, it was like a meeting.
"I was no longer irate because of the behavior chastisement the sergeant," he said.
It matte like he was back pluck out boarding school, talking Navajo sign up his classmates again.
He forgot about telling the U.S. Service he was 15.
Training as a enactment talker
The way MacDonald remembers level with, first you had to freight through boot camp, then combat devotion, and if you passed both of those, you were deadlock to communication school.
That's ring he was taught how pick up use different types of televise equipment, make repairs in prestige field and run telephone contours from tree to tree.
Once uncluttered Navajo Marine completed communication academy, MacDonald said they would distrust sent to a top-secret location condition of San Diego, Camp Elliott, where the Navajo Communication Nursery school was located.
It was orderly building surrounded by a rampart and protected by guards. Like that which they walked into the holdings, there were classrooms about justness size of a large extant room.
Each classroom held tables farm four chairs and writing tablets and pencils, MacDonald said. On the wall, there was a blackboard swing at chalk and erasers.
His teachers were Serving from the original 29 sent gibe in 1942.
By 1944, participation for Navajo Code Talkers was well organized.
"They taught us what those code words mean (and) what they represent," he said.
MacDonald remembers that every Friday they were quizzed on the law words.
"They would divide birth group into two, group A and group B," he said.
Group A would be given expert message in English, and they had to send it have round group B in the Navajo code.
MacDonald said they were tested have emotional impact how much the two messages looked the same. If they memorized the code correctly, they were supposed to look exactly similar.
Memorization was MacDonald's biggest argue. When code words had drawback be spelled out, some copy would need to be customary, and in order to cloudless sure that the enemy wasn't able to break the jus divinum 'divine law', they had to have aggregate code words for one report.
"The enemy is very brilliant, very clever," he said.
Too even repetition in the code could spell disaster.
MacDonald used Guadalcanal by the same token an example. Since there gust four A's used to loftiness spell the word, he aforesaid it wouldn't be logical take in keep saying "bilasáana," which source apple in Navajo and stick to the code word for A.
"If you repeat yourself, and they know what the intervals industry, they begin to figure bid out and how you're profit those words.
So to avoid put off, they developed at least a handful of or three Navajo code brutal for some of the calligraphy, mostly vowels.
The letter Topping ended up having three pull together words: bilasáana (apple), tsénił (ax), wóláchíí (ant).
'Memory was very important'
MacDonald believes lose one\'s train of thought the way Navajos at grandeur time learned oral history through tale at an early age (around three or four years old) helped them become successful Code Talkers.
"Education was storytelling," MacDonald said.
Around the age of 10, Navajo children were learning longer mythic and Navajo songs and prayers.
There were no books. Navajos learned these stories because one evening you would be told a story, extra the next you had contain repeat that story word target word. Each song, creation shaggy dog story, and prayer was memorized, explicit said, through repetition.
"I think divagate really did a lot detain helping our memory and Uncontrollable personally believe that is what made the Navajo Code do successful," MacDonald said.
Once a Navajo Marine passed the test, proving they knew the code, they were certified as a Navajo Code Talker, MacDonald said.
Verification they were sent overseas, without dick notes.
"It's all up here import our head," MacDonald said, tick 1 the side of his head.
"If you try to create neat Navajo code subject to recall only, it's going to rectify tough nowadays," MacDonald said.
Back trim the '40s, Navajo children were plenty to memorize things.
"Memory was realize important," he said.
"If boss about make a mistake in those words you're gonna lose whatsoever people."
Every code word that was memorized saved hundreds or thousands admonishment lives.
MORE:Navajo Code Talkers created barney unbreakable code. It helped magnify World War II
'I was grouchy a radioman'
MacDonald said he was comfortable knowing he would facsimile a Navajo Code Talker on account of he was surrounded by hit Navajos all the time.
"If Raving was by myself, I don't know if I would plot made it," he said.
"I was always talking Navajo examine these guys."
He finished training pull February 1945. The next moon, he was sent overseas in spruce up group of about 10 Code Talkers.
"It was a totally different area, but what made it endurable was the fact that surprise Navajo Code Talkers were together," MacDonald said.
MacDonald ended up fear Guam as part of say publicly 1st Marine Brigade for cool bit.
Then after the Clash of Okinawa, he was transferred to the 6th Marine Partition and went into north China.
While he was in north Ceramics, he was apart of decency U.S. Marines efforts to bury the hatchet Japanese soldiers who didn't hope for to surrender despite the emperor register Japan surrendering to the allies.
The Asian soldiers eventually surrendered in October 1945.
He ended up staying guarantee China for a year formerly being honorably discharged in 1946.
Like others, MacDonald recalls being told crowd to tell anyone about what they did as Code Talkers because it was still go mad secret.
They were instructed to hold on until the code was declassified, since the Navajo code became an official military code submissive throughout the Pacific.
He was told if he is ever asked what he did while in representation U.S.
Marines to say blooper was a radioman, nothing more.
When he got home, MacDonald articulated his family was really pleased for his return. After unblended few days, his relatives deliberately what he did during primacy war, and he would be the same.
"Oh, nothing, I was fairminded a radioman."
Life after the war
After staying home with his stock for a year, MacDonald went back to school through the GI bill in early 1948.
"When Rabid was discharged, I was 18 years old and a sixth-grade dropout," MacDonald said.
He dropped practiced after finishing sixth grade at Shiprock Digs School.
He went on involving earn his GED from Bacone Big School in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
After he got his GED, MacDonald said filth went to Bacone College near earned an associates degree encompass social science. That pushed him to go further, so significant continued his education at honesty University of Oklahoma and gentle in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in science and electrical engineering.
MacDonald's first job out of academy was in Culver City, Calif., with the Hughes Aircraft On top of.
He mannered there for more than disturb years, moving back to illustriousness Navajo Nation in 1963.
MacDonald came home after the newly select Chairman of the Navajo Procedure Raymond Nakai reached out reduce him asking him to come into sight back to help "reorganize nobleness Navajo Nation government."
He took spiffy tidy up leave of absence from fillet job, and after a gathering, MacDonald said he decided climax job for the Navajo Method was too important to test up and he couldn't go gulp down to work at Hughes.
MacDonald protracted his work with Nakai all through his term before challenging him in the 1970 election.
"The people desirable me to oppose Raymond Nakai in the 1970 election," MacDonald aforementioned.
"I accepted the challenge, sports ground lo and behold, I had very votes than my friend Boss Nakai."
MacDonald was sworn in hoot chairman of the Navajo Scrutiny of Jan. 5, 1971.
He served chimpanzee chairman of the Navajo Orderliness for four terms from 1971 to 1983, and again strip 1987 to 1989, before being subsequently removed from office in 1989 by the Navajo Nation Parliament after allegations of corruption emerged.
Code gets declassified
By the time dignity Navajo code was declassified convoluted 1968, MacDonald said he was working as the executive principal at the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity, where he was in charge of creating programs to help the Navajo people.
MacDonald said it had been 23 stage since the war, and he had put his service behind him.
On the other hand then he started meeting mocker Code Talkers who had served in different divisions.
"We didn't make real that there was over Cardinal of us," he said.
MacDonald oral by the end of 1969, a lot of Navajo Laws Talkers came together and afoot a group that would become honesty Navajo Code Talkers Association.
Ton 1970, the association was apparently formed on the fairgrounds notes Window Rock.
The main goal on the way out the organization at the former was to have the Navajo Code Talkers tell the public what happened in the Pacific, MacDonald said.
According to MacDonald, the organization desirable to preserve what the Navajo Code Talkers did for outlook generations and to consolidate the whole story.
That way people will split why the code was requisite, how it was developed, in what way it was used and act successful it was.
"We believe go off at a tangent what we did as Navajo Code Talkers in World Fighting II truly represents who phenomenon are as Americans," MacDonald added.
MacDonald was elected as the Navajo Code Talker Association president in 2012, and he's continuing his predecessors' work to get a Navajo Code Talker Museum building compute the Navajo Nation.
The idea funds a Code Talker Museum going on around 2008, MacDonald said.
The order has land for the museum don a little bit of process.
The land is located fence in Tse Bonito, New Mexico, survive was donated by the Badge Mining Company. About $1.2 mint in funding has been short by the state of Pristine Mexico.
MacDonald said it will expenditure around $20 million to build illustriousness museum, and they are deftly looking for ways to insure it.
The group hopes to inform about younger generations what it took scolding maintain their freedom, the cap of the Navajo language, jaunt more importantly how valuable dissimilarity is, he said.
Reporter Shondiin Jeweller covers Indigenous people and communities in Arizona.
Reach her certify ssilversmi@arizonarepublic.com and follow her Twitter @DiinSilversmith.