How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Four Navajo military men wearing camouflage marched in, carrying the US flag, the New Mexico flag, the Navajo Nation flag, and the black POW/MIA flag. (22.7)
These four flags—carried in at a celebration that Chester's friends and family hold for him—represent Chester's many identities. (A POW/MIA flag is a "prisoner of war/missing in action" flag. Thank goodness Chester didn't go MIA, otherwise we wouldn't have his memoir).
Quote #8
I think about how, in my life, cultures have collided—the quiet of Navajo land giving way to military training, the strict order of military training exploding into the chaos of battle. (23.4)
Chester reflects on the cultural and other upheavals he's experienced throughout his life. In using the world "collided," he suggests that these upheavals have been violent.
Quote #9
My fellow code talkers and I have become part of a new oral and written tradition, a Navajo victory, with our culture contributing to our country's defeat of a wily foe. (23.6)
Even though Chester is a modest guy, we can sense in his words here that he's proud of his own and his culture's contribution to the defeat of the Japanese. By saying that the code talkers have become "part of a new oral and written tradition," Chester's words also recall those stories he'd grown up listening to as a child. He's become a hero in his own Navajo tale.