Bill Toledo was born in northern New Mexico. [Annotator's Note: The video glitches at a few points.] When he was a baby, he lost his parents and was raised by his grandparents and an aunt. There were no cars in those days, so he traveled by wagon. The family raised sheep for money. When Toledo was six, he was sent to school. He would be taken out of school to help herd the sheep. One day, a school official came by and asked why he was not in school. Toledo had long hair in a bun, but the official cut his hair and sent him to school. His school was ten miles away, then another that was 75 miles away. He attended that school until 8th grade. When he was six, Toledo was taught how to ride a horse and milk goats. His grandfather would wake him up to pray early in the morning. They would then go on a run. His grandfather taught him about life. When the sheep would graze, Toledo's grandfather would tell him to go exercise. He would climb tall cedar trees and jump over bushes. Later in life, he realized that the exercise helped him in the military. Toledo joined the Marine Corps in October 1942. Toledo was going to school when he heard about the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It was on the evening news. He did not know where Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] was, so his teacher showed the class the following day. In August 1942, Toledo went to school, then corralled the sheep. The next morning, he went to the assembly area and was sent to the school. In October, a Navajo Marine went to his school. He was a code talker [Annotator's Note: person employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication]. The Marine wanted to talk to all the kids that could speak Navajo and English. He talked about how good life was as a Marine and wore his dress blue uniform. After the Marine left, five of Toledo's classmates got together and joined the Marine Corps. One of the men did not pass the physical because he was underweight. They got lunch and Toledo's friend told him to drink as much water as possible. When he was weighed again, the friend passed. The five friends were inducted in Phoenix [Annotator's Note: Phoenix, Arizona].

Bill Toledo was sent to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] for boot camp. He was able to keep up with the obstacle courses. Some of the other men were tall and big, but Toledo and his friends were smaller. On record day on the rifle, the other Marines made a bet that Toledo and his friends would not qualify. One of the friends was sick, but they still passed. Toledo was ranked expert. Afterwards, the men were separated into different units. Toledo was sent to the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. The unit was at Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California]. The other men thought he was going to be a Japanese interpreter. The following day, Toledo boarded the Mount Vernon [Annotator's Note: USS Mount Vernon (AP-22)] troop ship. It took two weeks to arrive in New Zealand, where they continued training. When the ship crossed the equator, the Marines were put through an initiation. They were told to put on wool jackets and stand in the sun. Many men fainted, but Toledo was able to withstand the heat. He thinks it's because of the hot baths he took with his grandfather as a kid. The division trained on the northern island in the country. They would camp and hike 20 miles a day in full combat gear. When Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] was secured, the division was moved to the island for jungle training. At night, the Japanese airbases on nearby islands would send bombers to attack the Americans. One bomber attacked every night and the Marines nicknamed it "Washing Machine Charlie" because it sounded like one.

Bill Toledo saw his first combat on 1 November 1943. He landed on the island of Bougainville [Annotator's Note: Bougainville campaign, Bougainville Island, Solomon Islands, November 1943 to November 1944]. The 21st Marine Regiment [Annotator's Note: 21st Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division] had stronger resistance. Toledo's unit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division] saw lighter resistance in his landing sector. During the landing, the wind started blowing hard and would cause landing craft to get stuck on the beach. Japanese Zeros [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero] started to strafe the beach. A nearby aircraft carrier was able to help beat back the Japanese. At the end of December, the island was secured, and the 3rd Marine Division was taken off the island. During the landing, Toledo was prepared to use his code, but did not have to. It rained often on the island. The Marines were not allowed to leave their foxholes at night. The Japanese were good jungle fighters. At night, the Americans were supposed to have codes so they could move through the lines. Toledo shared a foxhole with a radioman. The water from the rain would get into the hole and fill it up. The mosquitos would carry malaria [Annotator's Note: mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite] to the troops. The night after the landing, the Marines started moving into the jungle. A message came in and it was difficult to decode. After three hours, the message was still not decoded. Eventually, Toledo was sent to help decode the message. He was able to talk to another code talker [Annotator's Note: person employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication] at headquarters and he was able decode it in less than five minutes. For the remainder of the war, that was his job. Toledo had memorized 211 code words. They were not allowed to carry notes with the codes on them. After securing the islands, the Marines were sent to Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] for rest and training. There were five code talkers in the 3rd Marine Division. On the third day of the campaign, front line troops were moving forward in the jungle. One rifleman was with the communications troops and Toledo did not know why. Suddenly, the rifleman told him to raise his hands and took him to the commander. The Marine thought Toledo was a Japanese soldier. The Marine wanted to shoot Toledo, but he was told he was a Marine. The rifleman was later assigned to Toledo as a bodyguard. The Marine was impressed with Toledo's work, and he did good work in turn. They would hang telephone wire in the jungle for communications. Toledo did not know that man was his bodyguard until 40 years later. He was attending a reunion in 1988 in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and Toledo went to visit the man in Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. While on the trip, they were talking about the war and that is when the Marine told Toledo about his assignment.

Bill Toledo was sent from Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands with Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division] to Guam for another invasion in July 1944 [Annotator's Note: Second Battle of Guam, 21 July to 10 August 1944, Guam, Mariana Islands]. His commander was shot on the beach. The island was secured on 10 August. Afterwards, the unit made camp on the east side of the island. There were still Japanese soldiers hiding on the island, so the general wanted to spread across the island and get rid of the remaining enemy. Many were found. After resting, the unit started to train again. Toledo trained on the island through the Fall and Winter. On 19 February 1945, the 3rd Marine Division was to land on Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: for the Battle of Iwo Jima 19 February-26 March 1945]. There were two airfields and another under construction. Bombers from Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands], Guam, and Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands] would bomb Japan and then have to fly over Iwo Jima. The Japanese would shoot the American bombers. The 3rd Marine Division was a reserve unit but was landed quickly. They were told the operation would take a week because of the continuous shelling from the Navy and Air Force. The Japanese had 20,000 troops on the island. The Japanese would move using tunnels under the islands. The first two landing divisions took heavy casualties, so the 3rd Division was landed three days into the operation. The code talkers [Annotator's Note: person employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication] did a good job on the island. After the island was secured, the unit was set to Guam for training. They were told the next landing would be on Japan. One day in May [Annotator's Note: May 1945], the battalion commander told the men that some of the men would be sent home using the points system [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. Toledo was one of the men being sent home. He immediately started packing his things. He go on a ship that set sail for Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. When he arrived, Toledo was given four hours of liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], so he went to Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. About halfway to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], the ship turned south for San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He was given 30 days liberty, so he took a train to New Mexico. He went with a friend, but they went their separate ways. Eventually, Toledo was able to make it to his home. When he got to his town, Toledo bumped into the mailman who took him to his home. While there, Toledo's aunt and uncle came to the post office, and he was able to surprise them. That night, the family made a big dinner. The next day he herded his sheep, and it was peaceful.

After a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], Bill Toledo [Annotator's Note: with Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division] went to his new station and was then discharged in October 1945. His colonel at the naval air station did not want him to talk about the codes he used because they could be used again in the future. Toledo went back to tending his sheep. His family never asked him about his war experience. While he was home, he decided to return to school. He used the GI Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] to go back to school in Albuquerque [Annotator's Note: Albuquerque, New Mexico]. He tried to go to school in two other places, but they were full. A friend helped Toledo choose school in Albuquerque. He finished high school in 1949. He then went to Kansas for two more years of education. While there, he married his high school in girlfriend in 1954. She was a nurse and they lived in Kansas until 1955 when they moved back to New Mexico. Toledo started working for a uranium mine. He was laid off ten years later but got another job with a different mining company. He retired in 1985. When he retired, one of his cousins asked him to return home to talk to her class about his war service. By that time, the codes were declassified, so Toledo was able to talk about it. All of the classes wanted him to talk to them, so he stayed there all day. A young kid asked him to sing to the class. Toledo sang a song his grandfather taught him then left. That fall, another school asked him to speak to their kids. Toledo had one of his war buddies help with the presentation. When he was finished, the school gave him a drum and asked him to sing. One of the code talkers [Annotator's Note: person employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication] had translated the Marine Hymn [Annotator's Note: Marines' Hymn, adopted in 1929, is the oldest official song in the United States Armed Forces] into Navajo and all the code talkers sang it every day. In 1982, Toledo joined the Navajo Code Talkers Association [Annotator's Note: also called Diné code talkers, one group of many Native American groups of code talkers which are people employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication]. They went to schools, parades, and fairs.

Bill Toledo was sent to code talker [Annotator's Note: person employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication] school. When he was first given his material, it was hard, but Toledo caught on quickly. [Annotator's Note: Toledo gives examples of code talking]. Toledo knew the code was important during the war. He saved many lives using his language [Annotator's Note: as a member of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division]. When a code talker saw a plane flying around, they would get it to high command in code, so the Japanese never knew they were caught. When the Japanese tapped into the American wires, they could not understand the Navajo language. When Toledo meets other Marines, they all know about the Navajo code talkers [Annotator's Note: also called Diné code talkers, one group of many Native American groups of code talkers which are people employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication], and they thank him for saving them or their friends. The Navajo [Annotator's Note: tribe of Native Americans] appreciate how their language was used.

When Bill Toledo was home with his grandparents, he did not want to go to school. The school official forced him to go to school. A treaty in the 1800s forced the Navajo [Annotator's Note: tribe of Native Americans] onto an Army base until they reached an agreement that the kids would go to school. Toledo did not want to go to school and would run home. He would be sent back to school. Later on, he realized he was good at school. His education got him into the Marine Corps and his language helped him in his service. He was proud that he was a code talker [Annotator's Note: person employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication]. When he does presentations, he is welcomed warmly. In 1993, he went to Japan and met a Japanese veteran. He asked if he knew about the Navajo code talkers [Annotator's Note: also called Diné code talkers, one group of many Native American groups of code talkers which are people employed by the military to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication] and the man refused to talk to him. When he was first in the service, he experienced racism. The other men would tease him about how his people dressed. He was thankful that his grandfather spoke to him about the racism he would experience in life. Sometimes it would make him angry, but he would not do anything about it. Once news of Toledo's work in the war came to light, the Marines treated him better. Toledo travels the country speaking about his service. He still speaks to his wartime bodyguard.