“I’m very proud to be a marine” said Chester Nez at Wausau East High School November 12, 2013.  Chester and the rest of his family lived on the Navajo Indian reserve with his Grandmother.  They had a very small house but no one complained.  They herded sheep for a living.  Chester went to a boarding school with the other Navajo Indian boys.  While at school they were all punished for speaking their native language.    A lot of the boys were very upset about this but they all listened to what they were told to do.  One day when men from the army came looking for Navajo men to help out in the military Chester decided to sign up.  He knew it was a way to help out his family.  In total 30 Navajo men signed up to help out.  Not one of them knew what they were doing until they got to the military bases and learned that they were making a code to help the American’s  beat the Japanese.   In signing up Chester forgave all of those who had hurt him to help a country that didn’t accept his language and who punished them for speaking it.   This is exactly what Louie Zamperinie did when he decided to forgive the bird who had hurt him for a long time.  Forgiving people takes a lot of courage and will power because you have to say that what those people did to you is okay and that you don’t hold anything against them.  Chester knows that he did the right thing by forgiving those who treated him badly.  To this day Chester is very proud of what he did when he was a marine, but what would have happened to us if the Japanese broke our code again?  We are all very lucky that the Japanese didn’t break our code because if they did we probably wouldn’t have the freedom we have today.