He was the last surviving original Navajo code talker who served in the United States Marine Corps during the war.

[1][2][3] Nez was born in Chi Chil Tah, New Mexico, to the Navajo Dibéłizhiní (Black Sheep Clan) of the Tsénahabiłnii (Sleeping Rock People).

In 1942, he was among the code talkers to be shipped out to Guadalcanal, where they worked in teams of two: one to send and receive, the other to operate the radio and listen for errors.

Bill; he was awarded an honorary bachelor's degree by the Kansas University College of Liberal Arts and Science on Veterans Day, 2012.

[1][2][3][5] On July 26, 2001, Nez was one of the five living code talkers who received the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W. Bush:

It is a story of one unbreakable oral code of the Second World War, messages travelling by field radio on Iwo Jima in the very language heard across the Colorado plateau centuries ago.