Voices of valor: Families, leaders, military veterans honor Navajo Code Talkers’ enduring legacy

Posted by Donovan Quintero | Aug 21, 2025 | News |

WINDOW ROCK

Beneath the red rock cliffs of the Navajo Nation’s capital, families, leaders and military veterans gathered Aug. 14 to mark National Navajo Code Talkers Day, honoring the unbreakable code that carried U.S. forces to victory in the Pacific during World War II.

For descendants of the Navajo Code Talkers, the day was more than ceremony. It was a chance to speak openly about fathers, uncles and grandfathers whose stories live on in both history and memory.

A photograph of survival

Standing before a historic photograph of his father hoop dancing in uniform, Lional Price, the son of Navajo Code Talker Joseph Price, shared how the image came to be.

“He was a very crafty individual,” Price said, adding he gained much from his father, who was resourceful and able to do whatever was needed to make a living.

The photo, once circulated in wartime newspapers, shows his father dancing with improvised regalia.

“He went in pre-war, in pre-serving and post-serving. He was a hoop dancer,” Price said. “When he went to conflict, my mom sent him his regalia, but she wasn’t able to send the hoops. So they constructed hoops made out of aluminum aircraft fuel lines. That’s how that picture was created.”

For Price, the image is more than a snapshot – it is survival and spirit in motion.

“I kind of view it as like a healing part of that, to carry them through … recollect what’s here in traditional lives,” he said.

Looking at today’s commemoration, he added: “Remembrance – not (forgetting) the accomplishment they did for our country. They deserve it. To me, Code Talker Day, the Fourteenth, is a reflection on them.”

To read the full article, please see the Aug. 21, 2025, edition of the Navajo Times.

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