HONORING TRAILBLAZERS OF THE PAST & INSPIRING LEADERS OF THE FUTURE
latino sacrifices in american wars
The Ultimate Sacrifice
"Greater love hath no person than to lay down his or her life for a friend..." ~ Jesus
Otorgada a las que nos dieron libertad
Even in the face of the hardships and sacrifices suffered by Hispanic Americans on and off the battlefield, the Civil War became a source of pride and hope for many communities. The heroism of De Castro and Pleasant’s ingenuity provided young Hispanic Americans role models in the late 1800s. The Civil War also pushed the areas of Nevada and Colorado to statehood and gave its populations more civil rights and access to the U.S. government. Most importantly, the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery throughout the United States.
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
"Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger but it won’t taste good."
-Joe Paterno.
The need for ACTION when a COMRADE is in TROUBLE
COURAGE
CAMRADERIE
CAMRADERIE
Mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in battle
CAMRADERIE
CAMRADERIE
CAMRADERIE
the essence of what binds military units together, providing a cohesiveness among the individual members, which allows the unit to function effectively as a collective entity
SACRIFICE
CAMRADERIE
SACRIFICE
to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something OR SOMEONE else.
9/11 ~ the day the world changed…
"Nadie tiene mayor amor que dar su vida por un amigo" ~Jesús
"Greater love hath no person than to lay down his or her life for a friend" ~Jesus
'Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience." ~Thomas Merton 'La paz exige el trabajo más heroico y el sacrificio más difícil. .
Esteban Hotesse
Tuskegee Airman from the Dominican Republic
Esteban Hotesse joined the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. One of the few Latino men to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces, Esteban was an additional rarity considering he was black. He made history by becoming the first Afro-Latino member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the only all-black elite group of military pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps (the precursor of the U.S. Air Force). Esteban Hotesse was born in Moca, Dominican Republic, on February 2, 1919. When he was four years old, he immigrated to the U.S. through Ellis Island with his mother, Clara Pacheco, and his two-year-old sister, Irma Hotesse. His mother, who was 25 at the time, settled the family in Manhattan. In February 1942, when he turned 23, Esteban enlisted and eventually earned the rank of second lieutenant. He was still living in Manhattan with a Puerto Rican wife named Iristella Lind at the time, along with their two daughters. Over a year later, in April 1943, they applied for citizenship. According to his records, Esteban had been a semi-skilled construction worker.
Like his fellow black compatriots, Esteban experienced racism and segregation during his time in the Air Corps. But because civil rights leaders pushed for racial inclusion, a few changes occurred. Esteban’s squadron became part of the 477th Bombardment Group M, which moved to a base in Kentucky—Freeman Army Airfield—less than three miles from Seymour, Indiana, a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan. The airfield became the setting for the so-called Freeman Field mutiny. It all started in April 1945, when black officers learned that the man in charge of Freeman Army Airfield, Colonel Robert B. Selway, had created two Jim Crow clubs. Club Number One was for black officers, now classified as “trainees,” and Club Number Two was for white officers, deemed “instructors.” Colonel Selway also issued an order that defined the new regulation in detail, which the black officers were to read and agree to by affixing their signatures. Members of the 477th Bombardment Group. Members of the 477th Bombardment Group. In all, 101 officers, including Esteban Hotesse, refused to sign. They protested by peacefully entering the whites-only club in turn and demanding service. The officers were all arrested for violating base regulations. They awaited trial at Godman Field. Members of several black organizations, labor unions, and Congress voiced their disapproval of the arrests. Pressure from the collective voice of protest forced the War Department to yield. On the orders of Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, all 101 officers were released on April 23, though each had an administrative reprimand placed in their file. The brave protest of the officers became a blueprint for effecting change through civil disobedience. Less than three months after the protest, Esteban died. On July 8, 1945, Esteban and several men engaged in a military exercise over the Ohio River. At one point, they could not regain altitude after the aircraft flew too low and struck the water. According to the War Department’s official report: “The aircraft crashed into the Ohio River in Indiana killing the pilot, copilot, and Hotesse. It was reported that upon impact the cockpit and tail broke away from the aircraft.”
Famous Latino War Heroes
Bernardo de Galvez Spanish Hero of the American Revolution
Bernardo de Galvez Spanish Hero of the American Revolution
Bernardo de Galvez Spanish Hero of the American Revolution
Gálvez is best remembered for his role in denying the British the ability to encircle the American rebels from the south by pressing British forces in West Florida and for keeping a vital flow of supplies to Patriot troops across the colonies. Gálvez was officially recognized by George Washington and the United States Congress for his aid during the American Revolution.
Juan de Miralles Trayllón Distinguished Emissary from Cuba
Bernardo de Galvez Spanish Hero of the American Revolution
Bernardo de Galvez Spanish Hero of the American Revolution
"Mr. Miralles has been universally esteemed in this country and his loss will be deeply felt"
GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1780
First Commissioner of Spain to the United States. Miralles settled in Havana, Cuba around 1740, where he became a successful merchant. Miralles was chosen in 1777 to represent Spain as a secret agent to establish friendly economic relations. Spain attempted to remain neutral in Revolutionary War, but Miralles convinced his native land to join the American cause in exchange for the guarentee that Spain would control Florida after the war. Miralles was to be named Spain's first ambassador to the U.S., but feel ill with "pulmonic fever" while visiting Washington's headquarters in Morristown, N.J., and died within days.
Augusto Rodriguez Puerto Rican Lieutenant Awarded the American Civil War Campaign Medal
Augusto Rodriguez Puerto Rican Lieutenant Awarded the American Civil War Campaign Medal
Augusto Rodriguez Puerto Rican Lieutenant Awarded the American Civil War Campaign Medal
Lieutenant Augusto Rodríguez (1841 – March 22, 1880), was a Puerto Rican who served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Rodríguez served in the defenses of Washington, D.C. and led his men in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Wyse Fork.
Joseph H. De Castro, First Latino to Earn Medal of Honor in the Civil War
Augusto Rodriguez Puerto Rican Lieutenant Awarded the American Civil War Campaign Medal
Augusto Rodriguez Puerto Rican Lieutenant Awarded the American Civil War Campaign Medal
. The 19th Massachusetts Regiment of the Union Second Corps, alongside other units, charged into battle with bayonets fixed. Their color bearer, Sgt. Joseph De Castro, from Boston, went into the fight with only his flag. He charged immediately toward the 14th Virginia’s flag bearer and in hand-to-hand combat, seized the rebel flag. He passed the captured flag back to his commander before returning to the fray. The 19th Regiment’s attack worked and drove the Confederates back to their original position, saving the day for the Union Army. De Castro received the Medal of Honor on December 1, 1864, for his actions, becoming the first Hispanic American to do so. De Castro’s bravery at Gettysburg, while worthy of unique mention, is only part of the contribution that Hispanic Americans made to the Union effort during the Civil War.
Mexican American Medal of Honor Recipient
Master Sergeant Roy Perez "Roy" Benavidez, Detachment B-56 (MACV-SOG), 5th Special Forces Group
Lived from August 5, 1935 – November 29, 1998
Roy P. Benavidez was born in Lindenau near Cuero, Texas in DeWitt County. He is a descendant of the founders of Benavides, Texas and was the son of a Mexican farmer, Salvador Benavidez, Jr. and a Yaqui mother, Teresa Perez. When he was two years old, his father died of tuberculosis and his mother remarried. Five years later, his mother died from tuberculosis as well. Benavidez and his younger brother Roger moved to El Campo, where their grandfather, uncle and aunt raised them along with eight cousins.
In later years, Benavidez enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard in 1952 during the Korean War. In June 1955, he switched from the Army National Guard to Army active duty. In 1959, he married Hilaria Coy Benavidez, completed Airborne training, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.[2]
Benavidez returned to Fort Bragg and began training for the elite Army Special Forces. Once qualified and accepted, he became a member of the 5th Special Forces Group; and the Studies and Observations Group (SOG).
In 1965, he was sent to South Vietnam as a Special Forces advisor to an Army of the Republic of Vietnam infantry regiment. During his tour of duty, he stepped on a land mine[3] during a patrol and was evacuated to the United States. Doctors at Fort Sam Houston concluded he would never walk again and began preparing his medical discharge papers. As Benavidez noted in his MOH acceptance speech in 1981, stung by the diagnosis, as well as flag burnings and media criticism of the US military presence in Vietnam he saw on TV, he began an unsanctioned nightly training ritual in an attempt to redevelop his ability to walk.[4] Getting out of bed at night (against doctors' orders), Benavidez would crawl using his elbows and chin to a wall near his bedside and (with the encouragement of his fellow patients, many of whom were permanently paralyzed and/or missing limbs) he would prop himself against the wall and attempt to lift himself unaided, starting by wiggling his toes, then his feet, and then eventually (after several months of excruciating practice that, by his own admission, often left him in tears) pushing himself up the wall with his ankles and legs.[4] After over a year of hospitalization, Benavidez walked out of the hospital in July 1966, with his wife at his side, determined to return to combat in Vietnam. Despite continuing pain from his wounds, he returned to South Vietnam in January 1968.
On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces patrol, which included nine Montagnard tribesmen, was surrounded by an NVA infantry battalion of about 1,000 men. Benavidez heard the radio appeal for help and boarded a helicopter to respond. Armed only with a knife, he jumped from the helicopter carrying his medical bag and ran to help the trapped patrol. Benavidez "distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions... and because of his gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men." At one point in the battle an NVA soldier accosted him and stabbed him with his bayonet. Benavidez pulled it out, yanked out his own knife, killed him and kept going, leaving his knife in the NVA soldier's body. After the battle, he was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. As he was placed in a body bag among the other dead in body bags, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him but believed Benavidez was dead. The doctor was about to zip up the body bag when Benavidez managed to spit in his face, alerting the doctor that he was alive.[6] Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six-hour fight with the enemy battalion.[Benavidez was evacuated once again to Fort Sam Houston's Brooke Army Medical Center, where he eventually recovered. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism and four Purple Hearts.
