SAN ANTONIO — In traditional photography, Marcelino Serna wears his World Battle I Navy uniforms that are festooned with several of his battle medals.
But one medal is missing — the Medal of Honor — that must were draped round his neck about a century in the past, Latino advocates, legislators and historians said.
They’ve launched the newest effort to persuade the federal authorities to posthumously award Serna the medal, the nation’s very best honor for battlefield heroics, arguing it turned into denied as a result of of racism and xenophobia.
“It clearly looks Deepest Marcelino Serna did now not receive the Medal of Honor as a result of him being a Mexican American and an immigrant,” Lawrence Romo, nationwide commander of the American GI Forum, a civil rights group and federally chartered veterans neighborhood, wrote to the Navy.
Texas’ most decorated WWI soldier
Serna has been called the most decorated World Battle I soldier from Texas. He fought between April 6, 1917, and Nov. 11, 1918, despite being a Mexican immigrant and noncitizen.
There were earlier petitions for him to be awarded the admire, but now the law mandates review of cases fancy his.
Final 365 days, Congress ordered the Pentagon to learn about records of Latino, Shadowy, Asian, Native American and Jewish World Battle I troopers to establish in the occasion that they were denied the Medal of Honor as a result of of their speed or religion and desires to be awarded the medal.
A identical review, ordered in 2002, turned into carried out for defense force personnel of later wars. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded 24 veterans the medal, all but three posthumously. A kind of these recipients were Latinos.
“There’s deal of times in historical previous when you must well’t appropriate a ugly, but right here is a probability for us to appropriate an glaring ugly,” said Romo, who turned into serving in the Obama administration when these medals were given.
Bravery neglected, medal denied
The defense force’s authentic quotation for the Illustrious Provider Inferior, the 2nd very best battlefield honor, states that Serna singlehandedly charged and captured 24 German troopers.
But pretty a pair of accounts give extra thorough cramped print of his heroism and cite a pair of such a success solo mission.
The Texas Instruction handbook Online describes his involvement in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, France. Serna went out on my own, voluntarily, after 12 members of his unit were killed and weak grenades to blast a machine gun dwelling, killing six German troopers and capturing eight others.
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Two weeks later, in the Meuse-Argonne offensive he adopted a sniper on a solitary scouting mission, tossed grenades and fired into a trench from pretty a pair of positions, killing 26 enemy troopers and taking 26 extra as prisoners. He refused to permit American troopers to manufacture them in contradiction of the guidelines of battle, essentially based exclusively on the Texas Instruction handbook Online.
He turned into hit by sniper fireplace in each and every legs Nov. 7, 1918, four days earlier than the armistice agreement that ended the combating. He died in 1992 and is buried in the Citadel Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso.
Serna executed acts of bravery that weren’t exclusively documented in authentic citations by the defense force, said Andrés Tijerina, a Vietnam feeble and award-a success historian who has researched Serna.
Serna turned into awarded the Illustrious Provider Inferior, two Croix de Guerre with Palm by France and the Croce al Merito di Guerra by the Italian authorities. His Illustrious Provider Inferior turned into presented by Gen. John J. Pershing, essentially based exclusively on a 2016 method piece written by ancient U.S. Get. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and published in the El Paso Cases.
Romo said the omission of the extra cramped print on the exchange of enemy troopers he killed and captured from Serna’s Illustrious Provider Inferior paperwork looks to be “practically fancy they watered down his quotation so that they wouldn’t must give him the Medal of Honor.”
In step with Hispanics in The USA’s Defense, a Department of Defense pamphlet published in 1989 when ancient Vice President Dick Cheney turned into the defense secretary, Serna turned into advised by an officer he wanted to be of increased spoiled than a “buck” non-public, the lowest spoiled, to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Serna turned into advised he turned into denied a promotion in spoiled that could well qualify him as a result of he could well now not learn or write English effectively enough to label experiences.
Like York and Murphy, but now not white
Romo and others fancy to review the heroics of Serna with Sgt. Alvin York, one more WWI soldier who turned into awarded the Medal of Honor.
York turned into a corporal when he led seven males against a machine gun nest in Chatel-Chehery after his unit took casualties and he assumed expose, essentially based exclusively on his Medal of Honor quotation. York is credited with taking down several German troopers along with his pistol as they charged at him with their bayonets. The Germans surrendered. York and his males took several prisoners that grew to 132 as he marched them to his traces.
York, who turned into white, turned into straight promoted to sergeant and awarded the Medal of Honor. He grew to change into the matter of several books and documentaries. He detailed his actions in a diary that turned into adapted into a 1941 film starring Gary Cooper.
Audie Murphy, one more Texan, is lauded for his WWII exploits. He also is well-known in motion photography and books and museums and has colleges and a veterans clinic named for him.
York and Murphy deserve their accolades and medals, but Serna is leisurely for his, Roma, Tijerina and others said.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, turned into named for Serna in 2017 after congressional approval of a invoice written by Hurd.
‘Served in some unspecified time in the future of a time of coarse prejudice’
“That Deepest Serna served in some unspecified time in the future of a time of coarse prejudice can now not and mustn’t ever erase his acts of immense bravery and devotion to the US,” Texas’ Mexican American Legislative Caucus said in a letter to the U.S. Navy supporting the GI Forum petition for awarding Serna the Medal of Honor.
Texas Get. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, a Navy feeble, said the caucus added its lend a hand since the 41-member caucus is the ideal Hispanic legislative caucus in the nation, so “I figured it could well per chance send a highly efficient statement.”
“Throughout the historical previous of our nation, Latinos relish made huge sacrifices in some ways, but this one is a truly uncommon manner the place Latinos honest like Pvt. Marcelino Serna did so noteworthy for our nation,” Blanco said. “This demonstrates, namely now seeing speed relatives in this kind of volatile mumble, that correcting ugly injustices is obligatory and right here is a big effort to perform that.”
A invoice launched in Congress in 1995 to award Serna the Medal of Honor died in committee, essentially based exclusively on The Associated Press. There also were calls for Serna to be awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor, which has been awarded since 1997. Murphy is among its recipients, but now not Serna.
Serna turned into born in 1896 in a mining camp starting up air of Chihuahua Metropolis, Mexico. He immigrated to El Paso, Texas, in 1915, labored on a railway and later labored as a seasonal farm laborer in Colorado, essentially based exclusively on historical articles gathered by Romo to lend a hand his petition.
When the U.S. joined the battle, it established a draft for young males and would round up males who did now not portray. In 1917, Serna turned into rounded up in the fields with pretty a pair of laborers on the assumption that they were evading the draft, and he turned into sent to coaching after which in a international nation. He spoke diminutive English, Tijerina said.
Serna turned into exempt from combating as a result of he turned into now not an American citizen and turned into given the probability to now not fight. He refused. He served with Firm B, 355th Infantry, 89th Infantry Division.
Tijerina said Serna’s sage helps contradict generalizations about Mexican and pretty a pair of immigrants as coarse to the nation and that “so many are rapists, murderers and criminals.”
In 2016, President Donald Trump launched his presidential impart by claiming Mexico turned into sending to the U.S. these that are bringing capsules and crime and are rapists.
That Serna turned into now not a citizen when he implemented his heroics is your entire extra cause to acknowledge his bravery, Tijerina said.
“He did it as a result of he believed in democracy. And he did it in the face of insults,” Tijerina said. “People must grab about this man.”
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