Flags lowered to honor Navajo Code Talker Sidney Bedoni
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Window Rock, Ariz. • Flags are flying at half-staff on the Navajo Nation in honor of another Code Talker.
Sidney Bedoni died Sunday. He was 87.
Bedoni enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of 15, using a code based on the Navajo language that stumped the Japanese during World War II.
Funeral services are scheduled next week in Winslow, with burial June 17 at the National Memorial Cemetery in Phoenix.
Bedoni is the second Code Talker to die in the past week. Chester Nez, one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers, was buried Tuesday in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Bedoni worked as an explosives operator after the war. He and his wife, Lena, raised four children.
Flags will be lowered on the reservation until sunset Friday.