This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

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Many Americans have heard of the famous Navajo Code Talkers who use their traditional language

to transmit secret allied messages in the Pacific

Theater of Combat during World War II.

Our next story is told to us by one of those Marines.

Peter MacDonald is the president at Navajo Code Talkers Association.

We'd like to give a special thank you to Peter's daughter Charity, who travels with her father as he speaks to Americans all over this great country.

Thank you for serving us and securing this audio for us.

Here's Peter MacDonald at one of those talks.

In the early part of World War II,

shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States was getting ready to fight back in the Pacific. Not too long after December 7, 1941, Marines, Navy Air Force, an army ran into one big problem.

The problem was communication.

They tell us that in any war, whichever site that has the best communication,

normally has the advantage in the war.

Well, in this case, the enemy had the advantage.

Why? Because they were breaking every military code that was being used in the Pacific,

making it very difficult to strategize without the enemy knowing where we're going to be,

what route we're going to be taking,

what our, where, and when we are going to be at a specific location.

And they would be there with their submarine,

...