Story and photo by R.J. Oriez
GUIDON staff

Samuel Holiday greeted the room full of Soldiers and Marines with the traditional Japanese greetings “Konnichiwa.”

It is a touch of humor that would have gotten him killed in his younger days. Holiday served as a Navajo Code Talker in World War II. During the battle of Saipan, he was twice mistaken for a Japanese soldier and captured by his fellow Marines.

Col. Jorge Ascunce, Marine Detachment Commander, explained in his introduction of Holiday as the keynote speaker at the National American Indian Heritage Month Luncheon, that the Japanese had been infiltrating the American lines by dressing up in the uniforms of dead Marines. Holiday’s American Indian features lead to the confusion.

“His life, both times, was in jeopardy,” Ascunce said. “By virtue of his looks, he was presumed intuitionally to be one of (the Japanese).”

What made Holiday so valuable was his native language. The Navajo language was never written down and is thought to be virtually impossible for an adult to learn.

Ascunce referred to the code as “the most undecipherable and unbreakable code in military history,” Ascunce said. “The code was never broken.”

Holiday recounted that, one day on Saipan, a Marine officer wanted him and the other code talker in the regiment, to find where the Japanese artillery was located that was reeking havoc on the advancing American lines.

Holiday tried to explain, to the captain, that sending the Navajo might not be that good of an idea since they could easily mistaken for the enemy. After chastising him for arguing with an officer he did send someone else to do the recon, and the guns were found.

Holiday relayed the information in using the Navajo code, and the guns were quickly taken out. A few days later Holiday had the chance to see the results of the message he had sent out. He remembers that the sandbags around the guns had been tossed about and that there were a number of dead Japanese.

“A few of them did look like Navajo,” he said. “So much devastation with only a few words.”

History shows that the tied of the war turned about the time the code talkers made their appearance. “We shortened the war and saved a lot of lives,’ Holiday said.