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Alaska: Honoring America's Veterans: Native American Code Talkers - With both Veterans Day and Native American Heritage Month in November, now is a great time to tell the stories of the Native American Code Talkers.

During times of war, secure communications can mean the difference between life and death; victory and defeat. In World War I and World War II, the United States military relied on a unique series of codes to keep its messages safe from the enemy. These codes weren’t based on cutting-edge technology or complex mathematical equations, though. Finding their origins in Native American languages, these codes were spoken by a brave group of men recruited from tribal communities across the country. Those men became known as Code Talkers.

In World War I, soldiers of Native American descent, mostly Choctaw, used their tribal languages to transmit messages by telephone. Though not used extensively, the actions of these men confused the Germans and helped win several battles in France. Approximately 12,000 Native Americans served in the military during World War I.

When the United States entered World War II, the military again called on Native Americans to be Code Talkers. Fearing that some of the previously used languages may have been studied by the Germans and Japanese between the wars, military leaders looked for a new code that was more complex. For the U.S. Marine Corps, the Navajo language quickly became the answer. It isn’t a written language and very few people not of Navajo origin understood it. 

In 1942, the Marine Corps began recruiting and training Navajo men to be Code Talkers. Carl Gorman was one of the first Navajo to join up. “For us, everything is memory, it’s part of our heritage. We have no written language. Our songs, our prayers, our stories, they’re all handed down from grandfather to father to children -- and we listen, we hear, we learn to remember everything. It’s part of our training.”

The first 29 Navajo Code Talkers created an phonic alphabet and used word substitution to develop an all but unbreakable code. “Fighter plane” became “hummingbird.” “Turtle” became “tank.” “”Battleship” became “whale.”

Other branches of the military recruited Native Americans from the Assiniboine, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Choctaw, Comanche, Cree, Crow, Hopi, Kiowa, Menominee, Meskwaki, Mississauga, Muscogee, Osage, Pawnee, Sac and Fox, Seminole and Sioux tribes to create similar military codes based on their own languages.

After the codes were established, trained Code Talkers joined combat units around the world. The Navajo and Hopi were assigned to service in the Pacific. Comanches fought the Germans in Europe, and the Meskwakis fought them in North Africa. Code Talkers from other tribes fought at various locations in Europe, the Pacific, North Africa and elsewhere. Because the code was considered to be so important, many Code Talkers were assigned guards and weren’t allowed to move around alone. - More...
Saturday PM - November 11, 2017

Fish Factor: Southeast Alaska had the state’s largest slice of fishing jobs in 2016 By LAINE WELCH - Fewer men and women went out fishing in Alaska last year, in a familiar cycle that reflects the vagaries of Mother Nature.

A focus on commercial fishing in the November Alaska Economic Trends by the State Department of Labor shows that the number of boots on deck fell by five percent in 2016 to 7,860 harvesters, driven in great part by the huge shortfall in pink salmon returns and big declines in crab quotas. 

Fishing for salmon, which accounts for the majority of Alaska’s fishing jobs, fell by 6.4 percent statewide in 2016, a loss of 323 workers. 

The only Alaska region to show gains in fishing jobs last year was Southcentral, which includes Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet fisheries, as well as fishing boats out of Homer, Seward and Kenai. All of the region’s fisheries added jobs in 2016, even salmon, scoring the state’s second-highest total employment at 1,661 harvesters.

Southeast Alaska had the state’s largest slice of fishing jobs in 2016 at 29 percent (2,275 fishermen), but that reflects increasing declines for the third straight year.  The Panhandle’s harvesting employment dipped 0.8 percent in 2015 and then 2.3 percent in 2016, a drop of 53 jobs.

Fishing jobs at Kodiak fell by 8.5 percent in 2016, erasing the job gains of the few prior years. That reflected a poor salmon season, where fishing jobs dropped 14 percent, combined with slight drops in fishing for pollock, cod and other whitefish. 

Bristol Bay, where fishing jobs rely almost entirely on salmon, took the hardest hit last year. The 1,276 permits fished reflect a loss of 133 fishing jobs, or 9.5 percent.

For Alaska crabbers, fishing jobs were down by nearly 19 percent to 464 persons, a loss of 107 fishermen and the lowest level since 2009. That was due to lower crab numbers and a called off Tanner crab fishery in the Bering Sea. 

The crab cuts cost the Aleutians and Pribilof Islands more than 122 fishing jobs in 2016, a 7.8 percent decline.

Looking ahead, state economics said reports of record catches and a 67 percent higher payday for Alaska salmon fishermen this year suggests a resurgence in harvesting jobs for 2017, while other catches, such as cod, appear weaker. - More...
Saturday PM - November 11, 2017

TOM PURCELL: Veterans Day by the Numbers - "I had no idea that many men and women have served our country in our armed forces."

"Ah, yes, you refer to Veterans Day facts and figures shared by the U.S. Census Bureau. Did you know there are nearly 20 million U.S. veterans living today? Roughly half are 65 and older. Nearly 2 million are under the age of 35."

"That's interesting stuff. Those older than 65 served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and the 2 million under 35 served mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan after 911?"

"You are correct. According to statistics released by the Department of Veterans Affairs, World War II vets are dying at a rate of approximately 492 a day. This means there are approximately only 855,070 veterans remaining of the 16 million who served our nation in World War II."

"The greatest generation!"

"My father served in the Korean War. He is 82. Of the 5.7 million who served during that war, 2 million veterans are still with us."

"What about the Vietnam War?"

"Of the 8.7 million veterans who served in that horrific war, 7 million are still alive. To round out the numbers, 5.5 million veterans served during the Gulf War era, which spans 1990 to the present. Roughly 4.4 million veterans served during peacetime. Other veterans had it awfully tough." - More...
Saturday PM - November 11, 2017

DAVE KIFFER: By Any Other Name - It seems we still haven't quite nailed down that group noun to describe the residents of Our Fair Salmon City.

I recently got pulled into the millionth argument over whether to call locals "Ketchikanders" or "Ketchikanians."

 Of course, "locals" simply refer to themselves as "locals."

That is in the time honored tradition in which pretty much every indigenous tribe has called itself some  form of "the people." Other folks are called something else, but each group seems to call itself "the people." Go figure.

But since it would confuse everyone else if we officially called ourselves "the locals" we end up straining to come up with a collective noun. This isn't our problem alone. Other cities in Alaska find themselves in similarly linguistically fraught straits. Most just add "ites" to their town name and call it good (Juneau-ites, Homer-Ites, Kaktovik-ites). But that doesn't work so well for Fairbank or Yakutat and certainly not well for Utqia?vik. At any rate, it is certainly far too plebian for Ketchikan. - More...
Saturday PM - November 11, 2017