FLAGSTAFF -- Keith Little, one of the most recognizable of the remaining Navajo Code Talkers and a vocal proponent for a museum to tell their story, has died.

Little died Tuesday night at a Fort Defiance hospital, according to the Navajo Code Talkers Association. He was 87.

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Little joined the Marines at 17. He was among hundreds of Navajos recruited by the U.S. Marine Corps and trained as Code Talkers, who used a code that was developed by 29 Navajos and based on the Navajo language. Code Talkers used the code to confound the Japanese and help win World War II.

"My motivation was to fight the enemy with a gun or whatever," Little told the Associated Press in a July 2009 interview. "When I went into the Marine Corps ... I knew nothing about the Navajo code. It was really astonishing to me to get to Camp Pendleton and there were a bunch of Navajos there, and they were working with a Navajo code."

Little's health had been deteriorating over the past year, as he went in and out of hospitals between speaking engagements and appearances in parades -- the last time in New York in November for Veterans Day, the association said. He was the longtime president of the Navajo Code Talker Association until his death.

Little was among the most vocal of the remaining Code Talkers, always preaching about the preservation of the Navajo traditions, culture and the language that the federal government tried to eradicate before he and others were called on to use it during the war. Little traveled the country advocating for a museum near Window Rock that would house World War II memorabilia, tell the stories of his colleagues, and serve as a haven for vets.

It was a story he never tired of telling, association secretary Yvonne Murphy said.

"That was his life," Murphy said Wednesday. "That was the drive behind him. It didn't matter where he was. If there were people who came and wanted to sit and talk with him, he would share with them."

A video on the association's website features Little speaking about the importance of the unbreakable code. Fellow platoon members referred to the Navajos as "walking secret codes," with each written message having to be memorized and destroyed after it was sent or received, Little says.

"That is something that in itself was marvelous," Little said in the AP interview. "It was so proficient and safe."

A public memorial is planned for Friday in Window Rock, with funeral services scheduled Saturday in nearby Fort Defiance. Navajo President Ben Shelly has ordered flags lowered across the reservation from today through Sunday in Little's honor.

Little's wife, Nellie, asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to help build the museum.