Hispanics in the United States Marine Corps, such as Private France Silva who during the Boxer Rebellion became the first Marine of the thirteen Marines of Hispanic descent to be awarded the Medal of Honor, and Private First Class Guy Gabaldon who is credited with capturing over 1,000 enemy soldiers and civilians during World War II, have distinguished themselves in combat. Hispanics have participated as members of the United States Marine Corps in the Boxer Rebellion, World War I, the American intervention in Latin America also known as the Banana Wars, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and most recently in the military campaigns of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hispanics are also reaching the top ranks of the Marine Corps, serving their country in sensitive leadership positions on domestic and foreign shores, with Generals such as Major General Angela Salinas and Lieutenant General Pedro del Valle. Many Hispanic Marines went on to distinguished careers outside of the military in different fields such as sports and space exploration.
Hispanics (sometimes also referred to as "Latinos") in the Marine Corps account for the largest minority group of that military institution. Hispanics comprise 18% of enlisted Marines today, up from 15% when the Iraq War began. The United States Marine Corps has implemented an aggressive recruitment program directed towards Hispanics, which is the nation's largest ethnic or minority race (2005 Census). According to the U.S. Census Bureau the estimated Hispanic population of the United States is over 50 million, or 16% of the U.S. population. The 2010 U.S. Census estimate of over 50 million Hispanics in the U.S. does not include the 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico.
Read more about Hispanics In The United States Marine Corps: Terminology, Background, Boxer Rebellion, World War L, Second Nicaraguan Campaign 1926–1933, World War II, Post World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, 1983 Beirut Bombing, Gulf War and Operation Restore Hope, Recent Events, Medal of Honor, United States Naval Academy, Notable Marines of Hispanic Descent
Famous quotes containing the words united, states, marine and/or corps:
“... when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everyone will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people believe that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses were always hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon to-day has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure.... But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure.... There probably is an “irrepressible conflict” between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as be formed with that as an admitted fact.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“The Washington press corps thinks that Julie Nixon Eisenhower is the only member of the Nixon Administration who has any credibility—and, as one journalist put it, this is not to say that anyone believes what she is saying but simply that people believe she believes what she is saying ... it is almost as if she is the only woman in America over the age of twenty who still thinks her father is exactly what she thought he was when she was six.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)