Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

Meanwhile, the interviews to find that first group of Navajos for "special duty" were going on. Two weeks passed before they had finally chosen all of the men they wanted for that first group, twenty-nine in all. Each man was physically examined at Fort Defiance Public Health Service and carefully questioned to be sure he was really able to speak both Navajo and English fluently. Each man's age was checked, too. No one over thirty-two or under seventeen was supposed to be accepted. But one of those chosen, Carl Gorman, was actually thirty-five-although he listed his age as thirty-two. Another man, William Yazzie, was only sixteen, but said he was a year older.

All through this period of selection, no one was told what the special duty would be. Early on the morning of May 4, 1942, those twenty-nine men of what would be the first all-Navajo platoon, the 382nd, boarded a bus at Fort Defiance. Some of their friends and families watched as that bus headed southeast in the direction of Tsoodzit, Mount Taylor, the sacred peak that marks the southern boundary of Dinetah. Then they were gone, vanished. It was as if they had fallen off the face of the earth, for no word was heard from them. Not a single letter was received by any of their families who had been left behind. A month passed and then another month.