Navajo Codetalker Update: In Memory of Keith Little

Some sad news reached us at the end of last week. Keith Little, one of the last surviving Navajo Codetalkers from WWII and a champion of preserving their memory, passed away in Arizona. In an NPR remembrance, Little tells about being sent to a boarding school as a child and being punished for speaking Navajo. Just a few years later, however, he joined the Marines and was asked to use Navajo to develop a secret code to help defeat the Japanese in the Pacific.

As you know, our 4th and 5th graders did a research unit on the codetalkers which culminated in the students writing letters to one of four codetalkers. Mr. Little was one of them. We mailed the letters off in October, but they were destined for rural Arizona, where most of them live. We have no way of knowing whether our letters reached Mr. Little, but we can hope that if they did, he felt satisfaction that enthusiasm and curiosity for the part his unique group of comrades played in history lives on.