Wilfred Billey, a member of the Navajo Nation who served as a Code Talker during World War II, died on Thursday. He was 98.

Billey volunteered to join the U.S. Marine Corps. He fought in the Pacific theater with an all-Navajo unit, the Associated Press reported.

“Whenever he talked about the military during that time, he always told people that heroes were the ones he left behind, that he was not a hero,” Billey's daughter, Barbara, told the AP. “That everybody pitched in, including the people in the states, the people in the military.”

Billey is being buried in New Mexico.

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Navajo Code Talker dies at 90 in New Mexico home (AP 12/12)