Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac

Finally, graduation day came. Our all-Navajo 297th Platoon finished with the highest honors of all the recruits at boot camp. We held ourselves tall and proud in the uniforms of privates for our graduation photograph.

I did not know what would happen next. In a few days I might be shipped off to the Pacific to fight the Japanese, as other Marines were already doing on the island of Guadalcanal. I'd been reading about their heroic deeds in the Chevron, the Marine Corps' camp newspaper. Or I might be trained for some special duty here in the United States. There were only two things of which I was certain. The first was that I was now a real leatherneck. That, grandchildren, is another name for a Marine. It was a good nickname to remind us and everyone else that Marines have always been the toughest of all the armed forces who fight for America. The second thing of which I was certain was that I was now ready for anything.