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D4 The Pantagraph Saturday, June 15, 2002 www.pantagraph.com ENTERTAINMENT Code talkers glad to see story highlighted Navajo artist finds voice in film WW I 0 jam. i' if Illl I ZZj PC ASSOCIATED PRESS ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. When the president placed Congressional Gold Medals around the necks of four Navajo men last summer, it thrust the World War II veterans into the limelight after 56 years of relative silence. Those four, and one too ill to make the trip to Washington, are the only survivors of an elite group of 29 communications specialists the Navajo Code Talkers to whom many credit the Allied victory over Japan in 1945. The men developed an un-crackable code based on the Navajo language.

Now, Hollywood is trying to deliver their tale in a big-budget film to audiences worldwide. "Windtalkers," an MGM movie starring Nicolas Cage and directed by John Woo, opened Friday Cast members include Adam Beach, a Saulteaux Indian from Manitoba, Canada, and Roger Willie, a Navajo, as well as 50 Navajo extras and a cameo appearance by Albert Smith, a veteran code talker. Smith said that even though the movie fictionalizes some of the code talkers' story, he's still glad to see it being shared at last. "It's a good story on the basis of the code," he said. Smith was one of the original 29 code talkers recruited by the Marine Corps in 1942.

Eventually, about 300 Navajo Marines were trained to use the code. Few people outside the Navajo Reservation had even heard the language, and the Japanese never broke the code, which used Navajo words to represent letters or words in English. For example, the Navajo word for hummingbird pronounced Da-he-tih-hi referred to a fighter plane. The code word for America translated to "our mother," or Ne-he-mah. During the Battle of Iwo Jima alone, the code talkers transmitted more than 800 error-free messages in 48 hours.

Their accomplishments have been largely absent from history Associated Press Navajo Code Talker Bill Toledo smiled while accepting a book on Code Talkers so that he could autograph a picture. Five elderly Navajo men are the only survivors of the elite group, to whom many credit the Allied victory over Japan. ASSOCIATED PRESS ALBUQUERQUE To Roger Willie, speaking Navajo is about the most natural thing in the world. The language connects him to the earth and to who he is a Navajo. It also helped win him a leading role in "Windtalkers," an MGM movie which opened Friday.

The film tells one of the hidden stories of World War II: how Navajo men were recruited and trained to deliver messages during the United States' bloody Pacific island-hopping campaign. The Navajo Code Talkers developed a military code based on their ancient language, which is spoken by few people outside the Navajo Reservation in the southwest United States. The uncrack-able code was the top secret of World War next to the atom bomb, and "Windtalkers" is the first big-budget film to focus on its creators. Willie, who seamlessly switches from English to Navajo during an interview at an Albuquerque hotel, says he is proud to play code talker Charlie Whitehorse in a movie that promotes the Navajo language. "I speak Navajo better than I do English," says the actor, who grew up in Continental Divide, N.M., near the reservation.

His parents speak to him in Navajo a practice he continues with his own children. "We say that a language is sacred. You have to be very selective and careful with our words in Navajo. In that way, it serves as a powerful tool." A group of 29 original Navajo recruits developed the military code by linking Navajo words with English words and letters. It was kept a military secret until 1968.

Associated Press Navajo artist and first-time actor Roger Willie played a code talker in the movie "Windtalkers." "When you look at the words themselves, it really gives you a strong indication about how strong (the code talkers') cul- tural values were because of A the words that are used to sig-nify certain things," says Willie. "You are looking at some animals that are sacred, animals that have some kind of tie to the cultural values, maybe are somewhere in the T-oral tradition stories." Willie, 38, who now lives in Tucson, is a painter and tU U.S. Army veteran who served during the Gulf War. His first experience with mll acting came during an open recasting call for "Windtalkers." Jd "What I knew was that movies were all about portraying characters," he says. "I7" just looked at (the script) and I thought, 'I have seen this, I have seen it in my It reminded me of when I was in the military and I just thought, 'OK.

These are my lines and if this is for real, how would I say it? Let's see if I can do I Marshall and Mariana islands. When word about the film spread across the expanse of the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, many Navajos wondered: How can a movie about the Navajo code talkers star Nicolas Cage, a white man? The studio sent representatives to the reservation who explained that Cage and co-star Christian Slater play Marines charged as bodyguards for the code talkers. Producers met with the code talkers' association and hired one code talker as a consul-' tant. The studio also held several open casting calls on and around the reservation. In the movie, the bodyguards are given orders to protect the code at all costs, including killing code talkers if the Japanese tried to capture them.

Bill Toledo, a code talker with Amazon.com Published in April, Packer's novel is a favorite among independent book sellers and had 50,000 copies in print even before the publisher knew about the "Good Morning America" pick. Since Oprah Winfrey announced in April that she was cutting back on her selections, two other new clubs have had strong impacts. Kelly Ripa, co-host of "Live With Regis and books because the code was classified until 1968. "It was top secret from the training. You couldn't take notes or anything," said Sam Billison, president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association, a veterans group.

Even today Smith doesn't talk much about his wartime experiences. Tales of battle and destruction are not part of the Navajos' oral tradition, he said. "The elders asked us not to talk about our war stories." The bulk of the film's action takes place during the Battle of Saipan, a key step in the United States' Pacific island-hopping campaign. Smith, 77, appears in the movie at a bus station while Beach is leaving to join the Marines. In real life, Smith delivered coded messages about troop movements and supplies on the X.

the 3rd Marine Division on the Solomon Islands and in Guam, said his bodyguard was with him at all times. Smith, however, said he never had a bodyguard and knew few other code talkers who did. In reality, "none of the code talkers were captured," Toledo said. "But you know how Hollywood is." The movie does show a capture. Members of the code talkers' group also read the script by John Rice and Joe Batteer and recommended some changes.

"There were several things in the script that were not kosher on the Navajo Reservation," said Billison, including one scene in which a medicine man caught a snake, cut off his head and ate the animal. "We told them no that is not right," Billison said. Kelly," made an instant best seller out of "If Looks Could Kill," a murder mystery by Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Kate White. Meanwhile, USA Today has helped sales of Richard Russo's "Empire Falls," this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, and "Seabiscuit," Laura Hillenbrand's acclaimed biography of the race horse. Next week, the "Today Show" launches its own book club.

OFF mncn; au centsyr. ai dinner is Trail Rides (by appt.) 8043 book club leads to another new best seller Cyber Iiicli some tires at Another new ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK Maybe publishers don't need Oprah after all. Thanks to a plug from a new book club on "Good Morning America," Ann Packer's novel, "The Dive From Clausen's Pier," has become an instant best seller. "The response has been com PANTAGRAPH parable to an Oprah pick," said Paul Bogaards, executive director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf, Packer's publisher.

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