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Wednesday, August 13, 2025

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Code talker’s daughter reflects on RECA renewal after decades of advocacy

Code talker’s daughter reflects on RECA renewal after decades of advocacy

GRANTS, N.M.

When Maggie Billiman isn’t being the tireless fighter for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, she spends all of her time at home either sitting in her backyard watching the hummingbirds drink their fill of nectar from one of the feeders hanging from the ceiling or inside her house.

The stillness offers a sharp contrast to decades of trauma, loss, and tireless work that began when her father, a Navajo Code Talker who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and later became a uranium miner, fell seriously ill.

“He worked hard and suffered,” Billiman said from her Grants, New Mexico, home. “They told us nothing was wrong. They just sent him from hospital to hospital.”

Her father died in 2001 after years of battling radiation-linked illnesses, including cancer and internal bleeding. At the time, the federal government offered no support. The cause of his illness was never officially acknowledged, but Billiman knew what was behind it.

“He came home covered in yellow dust,” she said. “He worked in those mines for years, with no protection.”

From the battlefield to the mines

Long before he became a miner, her father had served as a Marine. Billiman remembered one of the stories he shared about his time serving as a Navajo Code Talker during World War II.
“He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Navajo Code Talker,” she said. “He told us the Japanese were right behind him one time. He had to stay completely still, not even breathe loudly. He said he knew that moment he was either going to live or die.”

Code talker’s daughter reflects on RECA renewal after decades of advocacy

Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
Maggie Billiman sits outside her home in Grants, N.M., on Monday, July 14. An activist, Billiman has spent decades speaking out about the health impacts of uranium exposure on Indigenous communities.

She recalled him saying he saved a fellow Marine during that encounter.

“He came back alive,” she said. “But what happened after was worse in some ways. He went from war to the mines.”

In the final years of his life, he often sat outside their home in Sawmill, Arizona, his hands trembling, holding a pouch of corn pollen.

“He would just sit out there, holding it,” she said. “He knew he was sick. He’d pray. I saw him do that often.”

To read the full article, please see the July 17, 2025, edition of the Navajo Times.

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About The Author

Donovan Quintero

"Dii, Diné bi Naaltsoos wolyéhíígíí, ninaaltsoos át'é. Nihi cheii dóó nihi másání ádaaní: Nihi Diné Bizaad bił ninhi't'eelyá áádóó t'áá háadida nihizaad nihił ch'aawóle'lágo. Nihi bee haz'áanii at'é, nihisin at'é, nihi hózhǫ́ǫ́jí at'é, nihi 'ach'ą́ą́h naagééh at'é. Dilkǫǫho saad bee yájíłti', k'ídahoneezláo saad bee yájíłti', ą́ą́ chánahgo saad bee yájíłti', diits'a'go saad bee yájíłti', nabik'íyájíłti' baa yájíłti', bich'į' yájíłti', hach'į' yándaałti', diné k'ehgo bik'izhdiitįįh. This is the belief I do my best to follow when I am writing Diné-related stories and photographing our events, games and news. Ahxéhee', shik'éí dóó shidine'é." - Donovan Quintero, an award-winning Diné journalist, served as a photographer, reporter and as assistant editor of the Navajo Times until March 17, 2023.

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