Our two instructors, John Benally and Johnny Manuelito, were shipping out with us. They were excited and happy.
"I did not join the Marines to stand in front of a blackboard," Johnny Manuelito said as a
group of us sat around together in the mess hall on our last day at Camp Elliott. He
reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a new piece of chalk. With a big smile on
his face, he handed it to Jimmy King. Jimmy and three other men in our second class
had been chosen to be the new instructors who'd stay behind and teach the next group
of code talkers.
"Now," Johnny said, "it is your turn to try to turn stubborn Navajo sheepherders into
signal men!"
if it had been a