Later Years
García became an American citizen on June 25, 1947 and earned a high school diploma in 1951. On May 18, 1952, he married married Alicia Reyes with whom he had three children. For twenty-five years he worked as a counselor in the Veterans' Administration.
On the evening of November 21, 1963, Marcario Garcia greeted President John F. Kennedy at the door of the Rice Ballroom in Houston Texas. The ballroom was filled with a diverse crowd of attendees that included Hispanic World War II veterans, Civil Rights advocates and future political activists. The president spoke of U.S. and Latin American Foreign Policy and the importance of recognition and acknowledgement of Hispanic organizations like the United Latin American Citizens (ULAC). Speaking in fluent Spanish, Mrs. Kennedy offered words of inspiration, encouragement and hope. The unprecedented meeting by an American President and First Lady addressing Hispanic minorities is considered by many to be the emergence of the Latino vote in the United States. The day after this historic meeting Kennedy was dead.
Garcia died on December 24, 1972, from the injuries which he received as a result of a car accident. He was buried with full military honors in the Houston National Cemetery in Houston, Texas. The local government of Houston honored his memory by naming a middle school after him as well as renaming part of 69th Street in Houston "S/SGT Marcario Garcia Street". In 1983 Vice President George Bush dedicated Houston's new Macario García Army Reserve Center, and in 1994 a Sugar Land middle school was named in García's honor.
Read more about this topic: Marcario Garcia
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“After years of vain familiarity, some distant gesture or unconscious behavior, which we remember, speaks to us with more emphasis than the wisest or kindest words. We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our Friends’ thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Time isn’t so important.... We can say that time is behind us, that we’ve had years together.... I can tell you about a thousand wonderful hours we’ve spent together because I feel we would have, inevitably. And there’s not that much difference between the future and the past.”
—Kurt Neumann (1906–1958)