"I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, the Girl Scouts have a new leader and she wants to let you know the organization is about more than cookies. Anna Maria Chavez tells us about her plans to continue the legacy of fostering leadership skills in girls and to bring more diversity to troops around the nation. That's coming up.

But first, we want to continue our celebration of Native American Heritage month with a closer look at the legendary Navajo Code Talkers. During World War II, the U.S. military sought to devise a code that enemy forces could not decipher. They enlisted the services of members of the Navajo Nation, who used a code based on their native language to transmit messages in the Pacific Theater. These Code Talkers could relay messages in seconds that would sometimes take coding machines half an hour. The code was never broken.

In 2001, then President George W. Bush awarded Congressional Gold Medals to five surviving members of that group. Chester Nez is the last surviving Code Talker. He is 90 years old and he's slightly hard of hearing. He is with us now, along with Judith Schiess Avila. She is a scholar who studied the Navajo code and she's the co-author of Chester Nez's autobiography, "Code Talker."

Welcome to you both.

CHESTER NEZ: Thank you very much.

JUDITH SCHIESS AVILA: Thank you, Michel.

MARTIN: Mr. Chester, thank you for your service. Do you remember getting the gold medal?

NEZ: That was very interesting when we received our medals and I've been thinking about this, when I can hug my gold medal."

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Navajo Code: Powerful As Any Weapon In WWII? (NPR 11/28)