Many who fought didn’t speak English

Published 9:00 pm Monday, July 3, 2006

A Saturday letter made the following statement: “All of those who have fought, been wounded and died for this country spoke English.” It’s an interesting statement, but not historically accurate.

If one wants to start with the Revolutionary War, we should all remember Lafayette, who was a captain in the French cavalry at 16, later bought a ship and sailed to Philadelphia in 1777 to join in the fight against the British, and became a major general in Washington’s army at the age of 20. He and his ship’s crew spoke French. There were the German-speaking Pennsylvania Dutch on the Union side of the Civil War, and the French-speaking Louisianans in the Confederacy. Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans, who are Americans, have fought and died for the U.S. since Puerto Rico became a territory. During World War II, the Philippines was a U.S. territory, and thousands of Filipinos, many of whom spoke Tagalog, fought and died for the U.S.

Samoans also fought for the U.S. in WWII, as did soldiers from Guam and many other U.S. territories. Many of these people did not speak English as a first language. The Wind Talkers were from the Navajo tribe, and during WWII spoke Navajo to totally confuse the Japanese cryptographers, who failed to break their “secret code.”

This letter is not to debate whether English should or should not be a national language. It is to point out that since our nation began, soldiers who spoke languages other than English have “served, fought and died,” as the writer phrased it, next to English speaking Americans. And we should not forget the sacrifices of these patriotic men in defense of our country, no matter what language they spoke.

Preston Chase

Camano Island