And the specific pride and recognition that comes from being able to describe one’s service fully and publicly was unavailable to the Code Talkers as long as the classification held.

The Postwar World They Returned To

The Navajo Nation in 1945 was in many respects as it had been before the war: a vast, economically impoverished reservation where federal policy had produced conditions of dependency without the resources to build the infrastructure that economic development required.

The New Deal had brought some improvement to reservation conditions in the 1930s, but the fundamental economic situation of Navajo families remained difficult.

Returning veterans who had spent years in the military found themselves coming back to communities where the employment opportunities were few, where the educational infrastructure was limited, and where the federal bureaucracy that administered the reservation was, as it had been before the war, often indifferent or incompetent in its management of Navajo affairs.

The Code Talkers occupied a specific position within this postwar social landscape.