It makes me very proud to have Major Sam Delgado (Ret.) write such an insightfull brief history of the important contributions that the hispanics community has made to our country!! We in the hispanic community should be very proud of the past and present military personnel that have made such sacrifices to maintain our AMERICAN way of life. Kudos to all of them!!!!! I salute you all !!

I can tell you why our Latino Vets don't get the recognition from "us" the Latinos and the rest of the US. Cause we don't know about them. Just like we are not taught about our history in this country, we are not taught of the Latinos who contribute because this would provide a different point of view of Latinos not seen in the mass media. Controlling what people know and see is up to the media and they don't want to see Latinos doing something positive for the United States, because it would disrupt the point of view many people have of us.  Can you imagine if young Latino boys and girls knew about the 65th regiment? Puerto Ricans decorated with medals of Honor? What? Never! Mexicans the most decorated with medals? What? Never! How are we going to celebrate these heroes if we barely know about them? And no one is teaching this in the schools, so how else are we to learn and take pride?
I always said that it takes a "village to raise a child" and we are leaving our children behind. We are not educating them. We leave them at the door step of prosperity with a sour taste in their mouths because they don't see progress made by the adults. The system has infiltrated us, (man I really hope there is spell check on here because I'm the worst, so forgive me if I miss spell) and we have forgotten that in our countries our neighbors watch our houses and help discipline our kids. Or that at the end of the barrio there is a little escuelita with a grandma teaching the little ones how to read the alphabet.  I don’t know how you learned to read and write, but in El Salvador, the lady down the street held classes for kids and my grandma whooped the alphabet into me.
Stories aren’t told anymore. My grandfather would tell me stories of Pele, Zico, and the great Paraguayan Futbol ( I’m not  Paraguyan, just a futbol fan)teams of the past. We would gather around and hear stories of the glory days of Futbol. Or hear great tales of how Atlactl fought valiantly against Alvarado and his Spanish Conquistadors. Or we played “Sorry” with grandma (Somehow she always won, I think she cheated!) until the older family came home from work and we ate dinner.  Or I remember playing futbol until the sunny day turned into a brisk nightfall and my neighbor would feed me, because half time was lunch and there were another 45 minutes to play afterward.
But that was in my country. Here in the U.S.  I barely knew my next door neighbors.  I can’t tell you what their names were.  I can’t tell you that I knew who any Latino Leaders or heroes were, for I wasn’t told of any stories of wars, or futbol.  I did know Fernando Valenzuela (great left handed pitcher for the Los Angeles, Dodgers from 1980 until 1992) was.  But no one teaches us about us. It is not in American history books, although (just like African-American History) is American history. 
Really, let’s take a look at something in particular. Who in reality knows about Menendez vs. Westminster? Unless you are educated at a college level, you wouldn’t even know that. I gave a lecture at a Sorority Banquet not too long ago and I was shocked that only one person out of 100 in attendance knew who the Soldaderas were.  And the one who knew it, wasn’t even Latina, she was Jamaican! So, being college educated doesn’t necessarily mean that you know about yourself.  Sometimes it takes a person with a Master’s degree in Latin American Culture to know such things. Why so late? Because by that time, you have much more to risk then when the fighting spirit of 15 is in your blood. 
So now our ever growing Immigrant population comes here and all they hear or see is, how we are “sucking the life, or utilizing services that don’t belong to us.” Or we are all illegal and we join gangs and become murderers.  So, what do we teach our children? Nothing, why? The teachers don’t teach them, our adults are too busy with assimilating to the American culture.  And in order to assimilate capitalism is what ordains the household, so money is priority. 
But then again, we have educated individuals, but how many educated Latinos go to schools and mentor? I would guess about .02% out of the whole Latino population do that (that’s an educated guess).  But the number can’t be very high. So who do we blame? Or better yet, forget the blame, how do we fix it? Cause I know who to blame.  But how can we fix that? Can college students be the conduit to educate the younger students?
I lectured in Texas last year and I got what has now become a recurring annoying question.  “How do we help recruit for Greek letter organizations?”  I said to myself, we need to be recruiting students to get to college not students to join Greek Letter orgs. But a simplistic Idea was born, why don’t the Greek Letter orgs, go into the schools and become a staple of that school and create bridges to the Universities where those middle school kids can come to college once a week? Why can’t the college kids do that? What’s so hard about giving of your time 3 hours a week to a kid that has a better chance of going to college and perhaps then joining your org? So my response to them and to every org that ever asks me is, “Mentor at a middle school and stick with those kids until they graduate high school, I guarantee you, if they go to college, they will be more up to pledging your organization then anyone else’s.” And even if they don’t, you helped a young Latino male or female get to college.  And isn’t that the goal any way? To get there and graduate? I mean gangs have no problems recruiting 10, 11, 12, 13 year olds, why don’t frats do that?
So, there is a perfect storm of madness as to why we don’t know about our Vets. But how can we honor them if the little ones don’t know about them.  Let’s enrich the children with that valuable history and let them feel pride of la Raza Latina run through their veins.  When our children see heroes they will start acting like ones, right now, all they see is Rich, poor.  Those who are rich and they who are poor. What kind of life is that? I can go on and on. And hopefully I didn’t just write this for me to read cause this is long as hell.  I might as well have been writing  an essay for philosophy class.