The Army of Cuban Occupation Medal was a military award which was created by the United States War Department in June 1915. The medal recognizes those service members who performed garrison occupation duty in Cuba, following the close of the Spanish-American War.
To be awarded the Army of Cuban Occupation Medal, a service member must have performed duty within the geographical borders of Cuba between the dates of July 18, 1898 and May 20, 1902. The medal was primarily awarded to members of the United States Army, but was available to other branches of service under certain circumstances.
The first Army of Cuban Occupation Medal was awarded to Major General Leonard Wood. A similar post Spanish-American War occupation medal was the Army of Puerto Rican Occupation Medal. The Army of Cuban Pacification Medal was a similarly named decoration, but was awarded for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Cuba seven years after the close of the Spanish-American War.
Famous quotes containing the words army, cuban and/or occupation:
“The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you don’t in the other?”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer’s day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)