West Point
Whilst at West Point he tutored Dwight D. Eisenhower in Spanish, as a second language was required in order to graduate. In 1915, Esteves graduated with Eisenhower and Omar Bradley among his classmates, and was the first Puerto Rican graduate of the academy. He was later the first graduate of 1915, "the class the stars fell on", to reach the rank of general. One of the problems that Esteves faced upon his graduation was that in order to become an officer in the U.S. Army he had to be a citizen of the United States and Puerto Ricans at the time were not. The War Department was able find a precedence when they remembered that during the American Revolutionary War, foreign officers like Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette and Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben were given commissions in the Continental Army.
Read more about this topic: Luis R. Esteves
Famous quotes containing the words west and/or point:
“Where there’s more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there’s more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying
That’s where the West begins.”
—Arthur Chapman (1873–1935)
“What I am anxious to do is to secure my legislation.... What I want to do is to get through that, and if I can point to a record of usefulness of that kind, I am entirely willing to quit office.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)