Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage met George W Bush yesterday – and brought his girlfriend, Lisa Marie Presley along for the ride. The nephew of Francis Ford Coppola attended an awards ceremony at the Rotunda at Congress in Washington, where the US president was honouring some of his country’s war heroes.
Nicolas has a leading role in Windtalkers, the new John Woo film, which tells the story of the Native American ‘code talkers’ who created a special code of 400 words in the Navajo language to transmit military orders and information during World War II. The five surviving members of the original 29-strong unit were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service.
One of the ageing code experts, Chester Nez, said: “The Japanese pulled all of their hair out trying to decipher the code. But it’s one of the hardest languages to learn, that’s why it was never decoded or deciphered.” The Navajo language is complicated and largely unwritten, and was for many years banned by US officials. “They used to wash our mouths out with a toothbrush and government brown soap,” recalled Nez.
Nicolas, who plays one of the Marines assigned to keep one of the codemakers from being captured, paid tribute to the code talkers, who played a major part in the taking of Iwo Jima in February 1945, in which nearly 7,000 US troops died. “What these men did is incredible,” said the Oscar-winner. “I’m honoured to have been involved in the film and help bring their accomplishments to the public eye.”
The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honour that Congress can award, and has been given to luminaries such as Thomas Edison, Rosa Parks, Bob Hope and Mother Teresa.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
