There’s Don Belt, an Oklahoma Cherokee who has been teaching the Cherokee language at the Cherokee Nation in North Carolina and provided a great deal of help when I was working on a project for National Geographic that became the book Trails of Tears, Paths of Beauty. There’re Robert Bushyhead and Lloyd Arneach, Cherokee storytellers who were born and raised on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina and who honored me by allowing me to write introductions for their books.

To those people and so many more Cherokees I say Wado, wado! I am thankful for their strength and their generosity. It is because of such people that the Cherokee Nations have, as Chad Smith put it, not just survived but thrived to the point where together they are today one of the most numerous of all the indigenous nations of the United States with close to 300,000 enrolled.

Special Excerpt from CODE TALKERS

Listen, My Grandchildren

Grandchildren, you asked me about this medal of mine. There is much to be said about it. This small piece of metal holds a story that I was not allowed to speak for many winters. It is the true story of how Navajo Marines helped America win a great war. There is much that I must remember to speak for this medal, to tell its story as it should be told. I must remember not only the great secret with which I was trusted, but also all that happened to me and those like me. That is a lot. But I think that I can do it well enough. After all, I was expected to remember, as were the other men trained with me. The lives of many men depended entirely on our memories.

Look here. The man you see riding a horse on the back of this medal was an Indian. He is also one of those raising that flag there behind him. I knew him when we were both young men. His name was Ira Hayes. He was a fine person, even though he was not one of our people, but Akimel O’odam, a Pima Indian. We both fought on a distant island far off in the Pacific Ocean. There was smoke all around us from the exploding shells, the snapping sound of Japanese .25 caliber rifles, the thumping of mortars, and the rattling of machine guns. We could hear the pitiful cries of wounded men, our own Marines and the enemy soldiers, too.

It was a terrible battle. But our men were determined as they struggled up that little mountain. On top of it is where Ira was photographed, raising the flag of Nihimá. I was not one of those who fought to the top of Mount Suribachi, but I had my own special part to play. I helped send the message about our success, about the brave deeds so many Marines did that day for Nihimá.