But it was not without precedent, and the precedent illuminates something important about the relationship between the U.S. military and Native language communities throughout the twentieth century.

The Irony the Government Would Not Name

Here is a fact that sits at the center of the Navajo Code Talker story and that any honest account must address directly: the language that proved so strategically valuable to the United States military in World War II was, at the same time, the target of federal policies designed to suppress and eliminate it.

This is not a simplistic irony that can be dispatched in a single sentence.

It is a genuine contradiction that runs deep into the history of federal Indian policy and that requires careful examination to be understood honestly.

The federal government’s effort to suppress Native languages was not casual or incidental.