Howdy, all! So this week we had to watch another movie about World War II. After hearing many awesome things about Windtalkers, I decided to do my blog over that. That, and you know, the fact that I actually own that movie and have never actually watched it kind of helped, too.The movie started off with a pretty heavy war scene in 1943. The Japanese outrageously outnumbered the Marines and everybody pretty much gets killed. Including one of his friends. So while he's crying over his buddy's body, a bomb goes off and he gets knocked out. About a year later after some serious hospital work he's pretty much all better (Enders, not his friend. He's dead, silly.) except for one hear where he's pretty much deaf. The only way to go back on active duty is to get a hearing test. Conflict! Well, this lady helps him cheat. Which I found kinda sad. I mean, sure, I can understand feeling bad for him but this guy's gonna be handling important business, ya gots ta be responsible! ... Anywho, so after cheating he goes back into active duty and gets assigned to protect this Navajo guy named Ben Yahzee. And this other guy gets basically the same mission protecting Charlie Whitehorse, also a Navajo guy. The two Indians are called codetalkers. If they're about to be captured they're supposed to kill them so the Japanese can't break the code. There's a lot more to the movie, with a lot of heartfelt emotion and gruesome deaths that I'll not go into details about. Nor do I want to ruin the ending for you, which is basically the rest of the movie, since it's fairly new and TOTALLY AWESOME. Instead, I thought you all might like to know a little more about the Navajo Code... which wasn't actually a code, but a language.
So basically, they used the Navajo language because while codes can be broken, you've gotta study a language for quite some time to actually understand it. This, I can assure you, is very true. I've been taking Spanish for three years now and believe me, the natives and I could not hold up much of a conversation. Also, people who learned the language during their childhood sound a heck of a lot different then if they learned it as an adult. Impostors were therefore easy to figure out. Yet again, Spanish class proves that. Also, no one other than Navajos of the United States spoke the language and nearly no books at all had ever been published in this language. Basically, this code was uncrackable, especially since anyone who could have broken it was killed, and never was broken. The success of the Battle of Iwo Jima is usually attributed to the Navajo code.Unfortunately code talkers weren't formally recognized for quite some time, until 1968. Mostly because this information was classified. And it's kind of pointless to have a secret code if everybody knows who speaks it. :P Ronald Reagan issued them some certificates and August 14th became known as "Navajo Code Talkers Day." Which, if you're like me, you've never heard about. Tsk tsk :( They've sinced been honored numerous times. Even being immortalized in a movie that focused on white guys and not them! ... Wait... that doesn't seem right at all...
So yes, the movie was good, I just wish that it had centered around the actual 'Windtalkers'. I mean, if you're going to focus on the Caucasians, you could at least call it 'Windtalkers' Bodyguards'. I mean, COME ON. But yes, if you haven't seen the movie, you totally should, and just pretend the Native Americans had a bigger role. Okay? ... Okay =)
Comments
Well done and funny as always!