R3 was a proud sponsor of the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial at its 2022 Veterans Day ceremony. At this year’s ceremony, the legacy of Navajo Code Talkers of WWII was honored with a plaque recognizing their dedication to their country.

During WWII, U.S. forces needed an unbreakable code that would allow them to communicate and protect their operational plans. The U.S. Marines knew exactly where to find such a code: the Navajo Nation. U.S. Marine Corps leadership selected 29 Navajo men, the Navajo Code Talkers, who created a code based on the complex, unwritten Navajo language. The code primarily used word association by assigning a Navajo word to key phrases and military tactics. This system enabled the Code Talkers to translate three lines of English in 20 seconds, not 30 minutes as was common with existing code-breaking machines.

The Code Talkers participated in every major Marine operation in the Pacific theater, giving the Marines a critical advantage throughout the war. During the nearly month-long battle for Iwo Jima, for example, six Navajo Code Talker Marines successfully transmitted more than 800 messages without error. Marine leadership noted after the battle that the Code Talkers were critical to the victory at Iwo Jima. At the end of the war, the Navajo Code remained unbroken.

 

The Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial is one of the most unique veterans’ memorials in the nation and stands high on La Jolla’s Mt. Soledad, offering panoramic views of San Diego County.  It is the only Memorial that honors veterans, living or deceased. More than 5,800 individual veteran tributes, embedded on black granite plaques, are mounted onto 11 curved walls honoring our military veterans.