Chester Nez passed away today. He was the last of the original 29 Navajo code talkers. I first learned about the code talkers while I was a student at Northern Arizona University and had the privilege of visiting the code talker memorial at Window Rock, capitol of the Navajo Nation with a former student Erik Bitsui. The irony here is that Nez, like most Navajo boys of his generation, was sent to a government run boarding school where he was forbidden from speaking Navajo.