 Good afternoon, and this is Michael Lee Lanning talking about my book Hispanic Heroes, Medal of Honor, Recipients Over Our Time. This was a book that I found interesting to write. I've written about 30 of them by now. But it seemed like I was doing some research on a book on national cemeteries in the state of Texas for the Texas A&M University Press. In taking photographs of headstones and visiting each cemetery, I noticed I kept seeing a repetition of Hispanic names. When I finished the book, I went back and took a look and found out that Hispanics had played a major role in ever war, which I knew, but they'd also received their share of Medal of Honor all the way back to the 1800s. It's probably the first thing to do, as established that I had to do, was determine just who is Hispanic or what does Hispanic mean. The actual official designation for a census use and other use in the government for Hispanic only dates back to the 1970s and has been many other words like Latino, Latinx, Chicano, but Hispanic is the word that the National Medal of Honor Society uses to determine just who is Hispanic and who is not. The word Hispanic goes back to the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, Spain and Portugal. People from there were known as Hispanics, although they didn't say they were Hispanics, but that is where the word Hispanic came from and is used today. Broad use and Hispanic as anyone from Mexico, Central and South America and Cuba, and of course born in the United States of Spanish parents. It's pretty hard to define in a lot of ways, and it was very useful. What I did was use the National Medal of Honor Society, use the certain rules that they had that I just mentioned, that they would decide on who is a Medal of Honor recipient. The research for this book came from the Medal of Honor Historical Society. They're located at Point Pleasant, South Carolina, which is on the Charleston Bay. Interestingly, it is on a retired aircraft carrier from World War II, the USS Yarktown, and they have archives on the Medal of Honor recipients, and they have much of the Medal of Honor time and care for people. Going through their archives was very interesting to find some first things that stuck out to me from a person that's gone through the National Archives on many occasions to find out just what material is there. Usually when you research, there is not much material there, or there's entirely so much it's hard to determine what you've got. And Medal of Honor recipients is surprisingly how little materials there really are for research, especially on the earlier recipients of the Medal. I think in the Medal, it's got to be realized that with 400 million Americans have served in the armed forces since the beginning of time. Since that time of 400 million, only 3,500 have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. I might backtrack a little bit there. Everyone calls it the Congressional Medal of Honor, although officially it is called the Medal of Honor. It's called the Congressional Medal of Honor because it's given by the President in the name of Congress, and that's where it gets the name of Congressional Medal of Honor in both common use of it and Medal of Honor as well. In determining, I could pick up a file and almost immediately tell you whether or not the recipient lived or died receiving the Medal of Honor. If the recipient didn't live long or died receiving the Medal, the file was very, very thin. Most of the people that received the Medal of Honor all the way back from the Civil War were young men, 18, 19, 20 years old. The Caislin one up in their upper 20s. They had very little life experiences before they were drafted or volunteered for the armed forces, and in their files was a citation, maybe a little bit of information that had been gathered, an interview with a relative or someone else, but I went into the in-depth research to try to determine as much as I could and include in the book the personal stories of what these young men did before they received the award and if they survived after the war. Unfortunately, as was true with most Medal of Honor recipients, less than half lived to receive the Medal officially from the President. Most were awarded to their parents because they were died receiving the Medal. The Medal of Honor, of course, is the highest decoration received by any American soldier, airman, marine, or coast guardman for a direct combat with the enemy. The Medal was originally established during the American Civil War. It went through many renditions and who was eligible all the way up to today. In the Civil War, it was given out very loosely because there was only one Medal to give. In one case, an entire regiment received the Medal because they all registered to vote and it was as an insanity. After the war, these Medal of Honor recipients were scrubbed to determine just who deserved the Medal and who didn't. Of course, the Mexican American, excuse me, Hispanic Americans have played a part in American history before it really was American history. When the English have settled on the East Coast and the colonies, there already were thriving communities in the Southwest that were established by the Spanish. In the American Revolution, Hispanics from the South didn't really participate because they were too far away and had their own concerns. The few Hispanics that did participate primarily were Spanish and Portuguese that had come to New England as fishermen and another tradesman to be in the war. Interesting in the Revolutionary War, although there wasn't a Medal of Honor, there were Hispanics involved in pretty high places. We've all heard of Lafayette coming from France to help Washington. We've not heard of a fellow named Morales that came from Spain and also an advisory position and more responsible, more importantly, he helped get loans for the American army and government to survive and he became a close friend of General Washington. In the Civil War, as I said, again Hispanics, there weren't very many. They were pushing up in Texas and in California. There were a few California regiments used to protect male lions and various security. In Texas, there were Hispanics that volunteered for the Texas Calvary Unit. Overall, there was not enough Hispanics to play any major role in the Civil War that came from what typically what were considered Hispanics from Mexico and South America. There were three, however, that did receive the Medal of Honor. Two who were born either in Spain or from Spanish parents and another one born in Chile. Two of these were Navy and one of them was Army. I won't go into each individual's great account of what they did, except to say when you read the citations that are in the book, it is just extraordinary heroism that you just can't believe that a person could do and take on and survive. And of course, few did survive. Interestingly, the three Hispanics that served in the American Civil War, only one of them was recognized afterwards. The reason being, two of them that were made, that were approved for the award, weren't around when it came time. Their ships either were decommissioned and they went home or basically they went AWOL, but they had proven themselves brave sailors before that occurred. The next person to receive the Medal of Honor was in the Boxer Rebellion and he served with the Marine Corps and served with again, went into a tremendous amount of enemy fire to save his comrades. World War I, we finally had quite a number of population of Hispanics here in the United States, but there was not, Hispanics were as they are still today in some cases. There were some prejudices and some people that tried to keep them separate and away, but indifferently from the Hispanics, then the black Americans, African Americans, was a treaty of Hildago in 1848 that took the last portion of New Mexico and Arizona and made it part of the United States. In that treaty it said anybody that wanted to could go back to Mexico or anybody that remained would become a U.S. citizen and that way Hispanic Americans, Mexican Americans became U.S. citizens with that treaty and by that treaty they remained citizens and were eligible to the benefits and responsibility of citizens. They were one of those things being the drafts during World War I. During World War I, there was one Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient and his name was Barclay. Interestingly, he did not claim to be Hispanic and only many years later did his family come forward and say he was Hispanic. His father was an Anglo soldier in Fort Samuelson in San Antonio, but his mother was Hispanic. His father left and his mother ended up raising him, but Private Barclay interestingly earned his Medal of Honor in World War I. Camp Barclay outside of Abilene, Texas was named for him during the expansion during World War I. When it closed, the flagpole was put in storage. That flagpole was brought back out in 1999 when the VA cemetery was established in near Abilene and that flagpole was set up at the entrance. So the Barclay flagpole and the Barclay heritage lives on. Come World War II, I might go back on Barclay. Barclay never claimed to be Hispanic while he was in the military and he was killed getting his Medal of Honor. At that time, a lot of Hispanics were put in what they called labor battalions or service battalions and he wanted to serve in the infantry and directly play a part. So he never played up the role of being Hispanic. In World War II Hispanics were eligible for the draft and came forward voluntarily. It's interesting that the number of Hispanics that earned the Medal of Honor in World War II that several of them, in fact four of them, were born in Mexico and came to the United States as children with their parents seeking a better life, primarily in the fields and orchards. The Hispanics from World War II primarily came from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California because that's where primarily where the Mexican populations were. Their families were primarily farm workers, traveling workers, migrant workers, but had had their own communities and were proud to step forward and serve. It's interesting to read, again the files are thicker from those that survived, but then read the letters of some of them that didn't. All of them said they went off to serve their country and if they were killed there would be the insurance money from the military that maybe their mother could build a house. The patriotism was no less from the Hispanic Americans and even though that they weren't enjoying all the benefits of white Americans, but they received it. Now I should stop a minute and say when I wrote this book, I did not write a, I am Anglo obviously, I did not write this book to show the many bad things that happened or the many prejudices or the many things that were done against. This book is not done about the bad things about Hispanics, it's about the good things about Hispanics and I wrote it not as a gringo writing about Hispanics, but as a soldier who wrote about his fellow soldiers. I served 20 years in the United States Army, served as a company commander, a tune leader and recon the tune leader in the Vietnam War in the infantry and served with many Hispanics both as commanding them and them commanding me and have the greatest respect for all soldiers, very much including Hispanic soldiers. My background was from a farm background and was very familiar with migrant workers and very familiar with Hispanics that live locally. Now, during World War II, there's stories of courses both in the European theater and the Japanese theater. They served in nearly every area both in a Marine Corps and the Army. Some of the most interesting ones were, I think probably if I took, had to look at any one character and say, he really represented what was going on in the whole situation was a soldier from Texas who was born in Mexico, Maurice Garcia. He was born in Mexico, came to Texas, lived around the Houston area, worked as a migrant field worker, joined the Army, earned his Medal of Honor, was badly wounded, came home, his city recognized him. The Houston, near Houston had big ceremonies for him when he came home. He was honored. Been his hometown of Richland, Richmond, Texas, just south of Houston, held honors at the courthouse. After the courthouse, he was hungry, so he went to the nearby Oasis Cafe. He walked in to be told that he was in full uniform wearing his Medal of Honor and a whole couple of rows of other medals he'd earned, quoting his combat implement badge in the war. The owner told him, we don't serve Mexicans. He obviously, and for quite rightly, started to argue the owner of the cafe had several guys came up behind him. Several sailors that were in the uniform backed up Garcia, and it was just about a pretty big riot going on. When the police got there, they arrested Garcia. He went to, was put in jail briefly. Lulac came to his, helping several national television, excuse me, radio programs came to support him and he was released. He ended up, he ended up working for the VA for a number of years. Unfortunately, was killed in an automobile accident, not too long thereafter. Mostly, though, the stories in the book or the tremendous amounts of courage, died fighting the enemy, the Medal of Honor given to his family back in the White House or some other appropriate situation. It's interestingly, it was an Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient that when President Harry Truman at the end of World War II presented it. A lot of people I think have heard it said that Harry Truman made the remark one time that he'd rather have the Medal of Honor than be president. Well, he made that comment several times, but the first time he made it was when he was awarding the Medal of Honor to an Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient. In looking at the people in World War II that received the Medal, like I said, four of them were born in Mexico. When they came back, either them or their families, if they didn't survive, were awarded high medals by the country of Mexico as well. It might also be remembered, or people might not know, Mexico was an ally in World War II and they provided a fighter squadron that fought in the Pacific, so they had a concern for their fellow Mexican Americans in the United States. The people then in World War II that received the Medal was a high plane. When you only look at 3,500 out of 400 million, you realize how difficult and how closely the thing was monitored. There were quite a few in World War II that probably deserved the Medal, and it was not until the late 2000s, early 2000s, that the United States went back and did a survey of all the Mexican Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish Americans to see if any of them might have earned the Medal and for one reason or the other, primarily discrimination did not receive it. They added 17 people of that, so 17 out of the 60, and many of those came out of World War II. In their stories, you just have to read their citation to see the vividness of a typical one would be it, even though wounded, he charged the enemy bunkers and knocked out the enemy in it, and then another bunker he went and charged in with hangar nades was just unbelievably turpitude and bravery, and having served in the field in combat with bullets going on and being fortunate or rather unfortunate enough to be about 10 meters from a young man that earned the Medal of Honor, not an Hispanic in the Vietnam War, I'm fully aware of what it takes to earn the Medal. When we got to Korea, Hispanics were increasing in numbers in the United States and were increasing in numbers in the military. If you follow a timeline to the number of Hispanics in the United States, it's really very, very small until the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920. That's when a lot of Mexican families with their children immigrated to the United States to escape the violence of the revolution that was going on in Mexico. And of course, many of these men were of age when it came time for World War II and then Korea. The fighting by Mexican Americans came probably to the biggest interest and biggest exposure to people of the United States early in the Korean War when General MacArthur, commander of the Allied Forces, made a big turn around the left side to invade at Enshan to take pressure off the Pusan perimeter. When he did so, the tide was low and the Marines had to use ladders to scale the port. Excuse me. There's a famous picture that was taken of a Marine lieutenant leasing his troops up over the wall. And as it did, a hangarine came down and he suffered. He took the blow of the hangarine and instead of his men dying. But the picture that was taking just a few minutes or a few seconds before that went national and covered pretty well everywhere. Come to Vietnam War, we had another increase in numbers of Hispanics who fought in the war. The General Idea Marine Corps and Army again. But it was a process where there were more and more Hispanics to fight the war. And let me check my notes here just a minute. Probably the most famous Hispanic to receive the Medal of Honor in Vietnam was Rocky Versace. Rocky Versace was father was Anglo, but his mother was from Spain and had come to the United States as an actress and writer and was reasonably famous in her own right. Versace's father was a career military and Versace was a West Point graduate. He was captured by the Viet Cong early in the war. And despite torture and deferrations, he continued to stand up to him, sing American patriotic songs and fight back and argue against them and refused to sign any papers saying that American was wrong in the war. The Viet Cong finally so tired of his actions that they executed him. And after the war, people that were imprisoned with him came forward and got the medal for him that he deserved. And the war against terror that has been, I guess, ever since 9-11, we've only had one Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient. It had been very many overall. His name Richard Petley from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I'm scared. He served with the 75th Ranger Regiment, lost an arm in hand and still fought on and received his medal. He came back and has been important in Veterans Affairs since. Many of the Hispanics that survived the war, all the wars with the Medal of Honor, end up working with the VA because that was positions that the government could offer as a reward and also in positions that they could help their fellow Hispanics as well as fellow soldiers. I skipped over this fairly rapidly just to try to get everybody in. And then I'll try to go back now and mention some more interesting characters. Some of you may have heard of Admiral Farragut in the Civil War, who the one who gave the order damned the torpedoes full speed ahead. Few people realize that Farragut was actually Hispanic and that his mother was from Spain. He went all the way up to Admiral and was the highest ranking at the time. I am speaking to you today from Lampasas, Texas, which is right on the border of Fort Hood, which is no longer Fort Hood, but Fort Carvassos, Texas, named after General Carvassos, the highest ranking Hispanic, not a Medal of Honor recipient, but a recipient of several high ranking medals of themselves. And I worked with him a couple of times, an amazing soldier of bravery and intelligence, just one heck of a heck of a soldier. Other people along the line, excuse me, Sergeant Rocco, also from New Mexico, he was one of those guys that had quite a youth in that he worked with, excuse me, he was a gang member in the Albuquerque area. He finally got arrested and the judge said it's either the Army or jail. He selected the Army, became a medic and eventually a helicopter pilot, and as a medic, he received the Medal of Honor, and he later went back, became a warrant officer, retired, went back and became chief of the entire facilities, VA facilities in the state of New Mexico. When the war of terror started, he volunteered to go back on active duty and served six months doing desert storms, primarily counseling veterans and talking about veterans benefits to his fellow veterans. I think it's a unique history of unique peoples. It is though, although I've looked at hundreds of Medal of Honor recipients, their citations and their histories, you know no difference except by the name. The only way you recognize it is by the name being Garcia Hernandez Rodriguez instead of Smith or Jones, and sometimes we miss them because their name Petley or Barclay, but it shows the pride of the people and the proud of the individuals. And although I brought up that trouble within the Oasis Cafe and other instances of prejudice, there's also instances of being recognized. In one case, the Medal of Honor recipient came back, was very disabled from his wounds since Southern California and his town and built his family a home for him to live in. In other cases, in every case, in fact, there is either an army post or in a town where the recipient is from, there's either a library or a city hall or some major place that's named in their honor. Also, there's highways and roads across the United States named in honor of Hispanic medalist recipients. Ships, several have been named after Marine Corps and Navy veterans with the Medal of Honor. So the recognition has been there and it has not been denied by any means. The book, which is available from the Texas A&M University Press, as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all the other distributors, gives the citation, the formal citation of each soldier, sailor, airman, and marine, of what they did to earn the medal. Then I go in to try to go in their background as deep as I can. Once again, on some of those that are deceased, it was difficult to find any information about where they went to school, what they did for what kind of occupation they had in background. And interesting in one of those cases, I found a Hispanic medal of honor recipient that was born in Mexico and never even became a United States citizen until three years after he received the medal. So they were not only American citizens fighting, they were Mexican and Hispanic citizens fighting for their adopted country. Then I go into more details on the actual battle in which they earned the Medal of Honor. And if I have any quotes from people that witness and the quotes are nearly always typically that he saved our whole company, he saved the life, he saved the platoon. We were not a broken out without his bravery. Most of the recognition is almost a disbelief that a human being could be so brave to charge into enemy fire and enemy opposition to save his friends and to lead the way for them to continue the battle. Then I go into what they did, if they were portion enough to survive the battle, I go into the presentation of the medal and then what they did after. And like I said, many worked with the VA, several of them stayed in the military, but all of them had very honorable lives after. Of the 3,500 medals of honors that have been presented, as we say in the book, 60 of them went to Hispanics. But a total number that have been awarded, there's only 66 living Medal of Honor recipients. And I say that, I guess it's correct, but they are, we're losing, especially World War II era on a fairly much frequency. And the numbers going down with fewer being presented with the hostilities in the Middle East. The medal itself is an explanation in the book that I talk about. And then I go back just a minute. I conclude each of the presentation with where the veteran is buried. And like I said, in the Texas veteran cemeteries as well as veteran cemeteries across the country, there's usually a special section for, excuse me, a special section for Medal of Honor recipients. If not, the information on the cemetery, it'll always say, we're honored to have two Medal of Honor recipients and they're located in Block B or Block B or something like that. So that recognizes it from there. Of the 66 living Medal of Honor recipients, I think right now I'll have to go back and check. But I believe two are still living who are Hispanics. So that kind of brings the whole gambit up to date. I think though the Medal of Honor itself is on a blue ribbon around the neck that you're probably seeing from watching various presentations by the presidents on television, especially recently. Many of those have been from both Hispanics and others from the review that have been taken. I see now we've got a question that's come in. It says, reference your cemeter book on Jewish Medal of Honor recipients, namely Benjamin Solomon who graduated from the University of Southern California. Ask how do you research to get the service records? Perhaps you can expand on how you did the research. I think, like I said, the research that I did all came from the Medal of Honor Society at Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. The service records can be received, just Google service records and it gives you the location. It takes a long time to get much back. But I would suggest contact if you want the entire file on Benjamin Solomon, who had a very interesting time as a Medal of Honor and receiving his Medal of Honor. And he was a graduate of the University of Southern California. That information, I would suggest that you contact the National Congressional Medal of Honor Society and just Google it and it'll give you the address and any appropriate phone numbers you need. Those folks are tremendously helpful. In fact, I dedicated this book on Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients to the staff at the Society. And like I said, it's on the board of USS Yorktown. What they did was build out part of just not the flight deck, which is the top which you see, but the next deck, which is a huge cavernous opening where the planes are shipped and made an awesome Medal of Honor recipient. The second question is, who was the Mexican citizen who received the Medal of Honor to tell you that? But it says in each case who were the recipients. All of them were born in Mexico and came as children. In one case the parents in San Antonio. I welcome any questions they have, but at the time we have, I'll be glad to answer them as well. And developing the book, a great deal of information that told me how the Hispanic numbers grew in the United States along the numbers that participated in the wars as well. I think we've pretty well made the whole turn here, but it's without a doubt Hispanics have served bravely and loyally and as an important part of our U.S. Armed Forces, basically from the time we've had the Medal of Honor to the present and will continue to do so. The United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard provide unique opportunities for young men and women to progress. Since many of the Hispanic community is living in poverty, it is a good way to exit that life and to serve our country as well. I can say I was nothing but honored to write this book and it felt very proud that my name is on the cover of a book about Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients. Thank you for listening today and I wish you all well.